Liquid crystal clad near-infrared metamaterials with tunable negative-zero-positive refractive indices
Date of this Version
March 2007Citation
19 March 2007 / Vol. 15, No. 6 / OPTICS EXPRESS 3342
This document has been peer-reviewed.
Abstract
Near-infrared metamaterials that possess a reconfigurable index of refraction from negative through zero to positive values are presented. Reconfigurability is achieved by cladding thin layers of liquid crystal both as a superstrate and a substrate on an established negative-index metamaterial, and adjusting the permittivity of the liquid crystal. Numerical results show that the index of refraction for the proposed structure can be changed over the range from -1 to +1.8 by tuning the liquid crystal permittivity from 2 to 6 at a wavelength of 1.4 mu m.