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Abstract. On the basis of calculations of multipole moments of In attempting a theoretical description of the optical
meta-atoms forming a planar metamaterial, a new method is pro- properties of metamaterials, there arise considerable difficul-
posed for the quantitative determination of its optical and polarisa- ties due to the complex shape of the constituent meta-atoms,
tion properties. The efficiency of the method is demonstrated by the as well as due to the fact that a significant role at the nanoscale
example of a planar metamaterial consisting of H-shaped nanopar- is played by longitudinal near fields, which are impossible to
ticles. describe analytically in most cases. Analytical expressions for
the scattered field in the general form can be derived only for
Keywords: metamaterials, planar metamaterials, nanoparticles, far the wave scattered on single spherical, spheroidal and ellipsoi-
fields. dal nanoparticles [2]. In all other cases, the problem must be
solved numerically; however, because the modelling domain
1. Introduction is always limited in space, one can only realistically calculate
the near fields, and far fields, which are important for practi-
The optical properties of ‘unique’ materials – metamaterials – cal applications, are left out of consideration.
have been the subject of active research in recent years [1]. There are various numerical methods which allow one to
Metamaterials are artificially engineered materials composed calculate electric and magnetic fields of metamaterials. The
of nanoparticles (meta-atoms) which are arranged at nano- widely used methods are the finite difference time domain
metre distances from each other and play the role of ordinary (FDTD) method and discrete dipole approximation (DDA)
atoms. Such materials can have a number of properties not (a detailed description of these and other numerical methods
inherent in conventional materials, and therefore, arouse is given in [2]). However, these methods have some draw-
great interest. The main feature of metamaterials is the backs. Thus, the efficiency of the FDTD method is hampered
‘decoupling’ of electric and magnetic properties of nanopar- by the need for a large amount of rapid access memory, as
ticles, because at the nanoscale Maxwell’s equations for the well as the complexity of the description of materials with dis-
electric and magnetic fields become independent due to the persion (metals) at oblique incidence of light on the plane of
absence of delay. It is this fact that makes it possible to pro- the metamaterial. When using the DDA, more problems
duce metamaterials with virtually arbitrary optical properties arise. First, its convergence has not been proved, and the
and to make use of them to control light at the nanoscale. accuracy of better than a few percent is rarely attainable.
Based on metamaterials there have already been designed or Second, near fields in this method are not evaluated and,
are being developed super- and hyperlenses, near-field sen- apparently, cannot be calculated correctly. Far fields are also
sors, ideal photon detectors and a variety of other devices not fully evaluated, as their section only can be determined.
[1 – 6]. For these reasons, to model the interaction of an electromag-
Among the variety of metamaterials we should single out netic wave with a metamaterial, we used the COMSOL
planar metamaterials that consist of one or more flat layers of Multiphysics package to calculate the fields in the near zone
nanoparticles. The importance of such materials is caused by by the finite element method (FEM).
both the relative simplicity of manufacture and the ability to In this paper, we demonstrate the possibility of a quanti-
integrate with modern silicon electronics. These features of tative description of the optical properties of a planar meta-
planar metamaterials have even led to the birth of a new term, material, consisting of nanoparticles of arbitrary shape, by
i.e., ‘flat nanophotonics’. calculating numerically the multipole moments of the parti-
cles and determining analytically the far fields. The geometry
of the problem is shown in Fig. 1.
A. A. Pavlov Department of Physics, M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State In Section 2 we set forth the essence of our method. The
University, Vorob’evy gory 1, 119991 Moscow, Russia; main idea is to represent the currents induced by the incident
e-mail: aa.pavlov@physics.msu.ru;
electromagnetic wave inside the nanoparticles in the form of
V.V. Klimov P.N. Lebedev Physics Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences,
Leninsky prosp. 53, 119991 Moscow, Russia; e-mail vklim@sci.lebedev.ru; oscillating multipoles generating a scattered field. Using these
Yu.V. Vladimirova, V.N. Zadkov Department of Physics, International multipole moments we can derive analytical expressions for
Laser Center, M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University, Vorob’evy the scattered field, thereby making it possible to determine
gory 1, 119991 Moscow, Russia; e-mail: yu.vladimirova@physics.msu.ru the properties of the transmitted and reflected waves in the far
field, as well as to compute the Stokes parameters, which is of
Received 6 November 2012; revision received 28 January 2013
interest for the study of metamaterials consisting of chiral
Kvantovaya Elektronika 43 (5) 496 – 501 (2013)
Translated by I.A. Ulitkin nanoparticles. In Section 3 we demonstrate the effectiveness
of our method for studying the optical and polarisation prop-
Analysis of optical properties of planar metamaterials by calculating 497
Mn y
t = e0 ^ e( rl ) - 1h E( rl ) ( nrl ) dV' (4)
x
is the projection vector of the tensor M t of the combined mag-
ri netic dipole and electric quadrupole moments of the zero par-
ticle in the direction n; ni = (r – ri )/|r – ri | is the unit vector of
y
z the observation point from the ith particle. In (3) and (4) inte-
kT0 gration is performed over the volume of the nanoparticles
r positioned at the origin of the coordinates.
Consider now the terms that contain the electric dipole
Figure 1. Schematic view of the planar metamaterial under study. moment d. Assuming the distance between the nanoparticles
to be much smaller than the wavelength (which by definition
is valid for metamaterials), the summation over the particles
erties of a planar metamaterial composed of H-shaped can be replaced by integration over an infinite plane. As a
nanoparticles (an experimental study of the metamaterial is result, the expression for the far field of an infinite plane grat-
given in [7]). In particular, we calculate the Stokes parameters ing of nanoparticles taking into account only the electric
and draw a conclusion about the conversion efficiency of the dipole moment will have the form:
incident wave polarisation by this metamaterial.
E scd = - i exp[ i( k'0 r)]6 k'0 [ k'0 d ]@ ,
2. Calculation of far fields by multipole 2e0 k0z DS
moments of meta-atoms (5)
To describe the optical properties of metamaterials by using H scd =
i exp[ i( k'0 r)] 6 k'0 6 k'0 [ k'0 d ]@@ ,
multipole moments of meta-atoms, we will use the integral 2e0 Z0 k0 k0z DS
expression for the scattered field [8]:
where kl0 = k 0T = k0 = ^ k 0x, k 0y, k 0zh for the transmitted wave
Esc = rotrot y e( r4l)p- 1 E( rl) expR( ik0 R) dV l , (1) and kl0 = k 0R = ^ k 0x, k 0y, -k 0zh for the reflected wave;
Z0 = m0 /e0 is the impedance of free space; DS = LxLy is the
area of the unit cell of the metamaterial; Lx and Ly are recur-
where E is the electric field vector within the particle; k0 is the rence intervals of meta-atoms in the metamaterial along the х
modulus of the wave vector of the incident wave; R = |r – r' |; and y axes.
r is the radius vector of the observation point; r' is the radius The expressions for the scattered field produced by a
vector of the element with the volume dV'; e is the relative plane grating composed of electric quadrupole and magnetic
permittivity of the particle; and the integration is performed dipole moments are found in a similar way:
over the volume of the metamaterial. Using the value of the
field inside the particles found by the numerical simulation E scqm = - 1 exp[ i( k'0 r)] 6 k'0 [ k'0 ( Mk
t '0 )]@ ,
methods, this expression allows one to find the scattered (i.e., 2e0 k0z DS
far) fields, and thus describe the ‘external’ properties of the (6)
metamaterial.
We now use (1) to describe the scattering by a plane H scqm = 1 exp[ i( k'0 r)] 6 k'0 6 k'0 [ k'0 ( Mk
t '0 )]@@ .
2e0 Z0 k0 k0z DS
monochromatic wave E0(r, t) = E0 exp(ik0r)exp(–iwt) on a
planar metamaterial consisting of periodically arranged meta-
atoms of arbitrary shape. Below, the time-dependence factor In order to analyse the magnetic properties of metamate-
will be omitted. Let ri be the radius vector of the ith particle rials, it is important to separate the contributions of the elec-
with respect to the zero particle located at the origin of the tric quadrupole and magnetic dipole moments. This separa-
coordinates. Then, using only the smallness of the nanopar- tion can be done if we take into account the fact that the com-
ticle size as compared with the wavelength, we obtain from bined tensor M t can be represented as the sum of symmetric
expression (1) the expressions for the scattered field generated and asymmetric parts, the symmetric part corresponding to
by an infinite plane of particles as the sum of the individual the electric quadrupole moment, and antisymmetric – to the
particles: magnetic dipole moment [9]:
e0
Esc ( r) = 1 rotrot / exp[ i( k0 ri)] t )q =
( Mn y
^ e( rl ) - 1h^ E( nr' ) + r' ( En)h dV l ,
4pe0 i
2
exp 6 ik0 r - ri @ t i) ,
(7)
´ ( d - ik0 Mn (2)
r - ri t ) m = e0 ^ e( rl ) - 1h6[ r' # E] # n @ dV l ,
( Mn y
2
where
t ) q is the projection vector of the electric quadru-
where ( Mn
y
d = e0 ^ e( r' ) - 1h E( r' ) dV' (3) t ) m is the projection vec-
pole moment of the particle, and ( Mn
498 A.A. Pavlov, V.V. Klimov, Yu.V. Vladimirova, V.N. Zadkov
tor of the magnetic dipole moment of the particle in the direc- The averaged Umov – Poynting vector of the incident
tion n. wave has the form
Now, the electric and magnetic fields from an infinite
S0 = 1 Re 6 E0 # H 0*@ = 1 E 02 0 .
plane of particles taking into account only the electric quad- k
rupole moment will have the form: 2 2Z0 k0
= 1 + 2 Re ;
STz 1 1
T= (E P )
exp[ i( k'0 r)] 6 k'0 6 k'0 [ k'0 ( Mk
t '0 ) q]@@ , (8)
1 S0z E0 e0 k0z DS 0 qm
H scq =
2e0 Z0 k0 k0z DS
1 ^| Pd | 2 +| Pqm | 2hE
k 0T
+ , (11)
]2e0 k0z DS g 2 k0
Pa = p ab0 E b + p abg
1
] g ] g
d g E b , (18)
where
0 ] g 1 ] g
Qag = q agb E b + q agbd dd Eb ,
Pd = 6 k 0T 6 k 0T d @@, Pqm = 6 k 0T 6 k 0T ( Mk
t 0T)@@ . (12)
where the tensors p ab0 and cab
0
] g ] g
contribute to the electric and
] 1g ] 1g ] 0g
magnetic permeabilities, respectively; and p abg , cabg and q abg
Analysis of optical properties of planar metamaterials by calculating 499
are responsible for the chirality of the medium. Thus, using 1.0
ference of the metamaterial from the conventional macro- polarised waves, normalised to transmission coefficient at the
scopic material: a metamaterial interacting with light exhibits corresponding frequency. It can be seen that although about
unusual properties that cannot be observed in ordinary mat- 60 % of the transmitted right-hand polarised wave is con-
ter. Although the contribution of the magnetic dipole moment verted into the left-hand polarised wave, with respect to the
is small, it is essential that it is different from zero. This sug- incident wave amplitude the conversion coefficient is much
gests the possibility of producing such a configuration of a smaller – about 20 %.
nanoparticle in which its magnetic moment would be compa-
rable in order of magnitude (or more) with an electric dipole
moment and will make a significant contribution to the inter-
1.0
action of light with such a metamaterial.
Transmission coefficient
As noted above, simulation using the COMSOL software
package was conducted for two linear polarisations of the 0.8
incident wave – along the x axis and along the y axis. Tright
Combining the solutions obtained for these linear polarisa- 0.6
tions, we can obtain any solution for the other polarisations,
including circular. Thus, if we consider the wave propagating
0.4
from the source, the fields with the right- and left-hand circu-
lar polarisations will be determined as:
0.2
Tleft
Eright ( r) = Ex ( r) + iEy ( r), Eleft ( r) = Ex ( r) - iEy ( r) , (19)
0
where Ex(r) and Ey(r) are the solutions for linear x- and 160 180 200 220 240 260 280 300 320 340
y-polarisations. Substituting the obtained solution into the Frequency/ THz
expressions for the Stokes parameters, we can obtain the con-
Figure 6. Amplitudes of the right- and left-hand circularly polarised
version coefficients of the wave with one circularly polarisa- waves passing through the layer of the metamaterial. The amplitudes
tion into the wave with the opposite circular polarisation. are normalised to the transmission coefficient; the right-hand circularly
Since in this case the shape of the metamaterial nanoparticles polarised wave is incident on the metamaterial.
is symmetric with respect to the left- and right-hand circular
polarisations (i.e., the particle is not chiral), it is sufficient to
obtain the results for the wave (passing through a layer of the As in the case of linear polarisation, we compare the con-
metamaterial) of only one circular polarisation – for the tributions of the various multipole moments into the trans-
opposite circular polarisation the result will be the same. mission coefficient. Figure 7 shows the spectra of the trans-
Consider the right-hand polarised wave incident on the mission coefficient taking into account different combina-
metamaterial and its conversion. Figure 5 presents the ampli- tions of multipole moments. One can see that dominant is the
tudes of the right- and left-hand polarised waves after passing electric dipole moment; however, the corresponding transmis-
through the metamaterial layer, normalised to their sum. One sion coefficient is significantly different from the total trans-
can see that in the region of resonances the transmitted wave mission coefficient taking into account all the three contribu-
is no longer a purely right-hand polarised wave, and near tions in the case of linear polarisation. In this case, the account
275 THz, it has left-hand elliptical polarisation. At the points for the dipole electric moment with the magnetic dipole
where the amplitudes of the right- and left-hand polarised moment almost does not change the situation, whereas the
waves intersect, the transmitted wave is linearly polarised. account for the dipole electric moment with the electric quad-
Figure 6 shows the amplitudes of the right- and left-hand rupole moment significantly improves the coincidence with
1.0 1.0
Amplitude
Transmission coefficient
Aright T
0.8 0.8 Td,q
Td,m
0.6 0.6 Td
0.4 0.4
Aleft
0.2 0.2
0 0
160 180 200 220 240 260 280 300 320 340 160 180 200 220 240 260 280 300 320 340
Frequency/ THz Frequency/ THz
Figure 5. Amplitudes of the right- and left-hand circularly polarised Figure 7. Transmission coefficients, taking into account the contribu-
waves passing through the layer of the metamaterial. The amplitudes tions of various multipole moments (notation is the same as in Fig. 4).
are normalised to their sum; the right-hand circularly polarised wave is The right-hand circularly polarised wave is incident on the metamate-
incident on the metamaterial. rial.
Analysis of optical properties of planar metamaterials by calculating 501
the total transmission coefficient. From this we can conclude 11. Vinogradov A.P. Elektrodinamika kompozitnykh materialov
that when a circularly polarised wave interacts with the meta- (Electrodynamics of Composite Materials) (Moscow: URSS,
material nanoparticles, the contribution of the quadrupole 2001) p. 208.
12. Weber M.J. Handbook of Optical Materials (New York – London:
electric moment is much greater than that of the magnetic
CRC Press, 2002, p. 536).
dipole moment. 13. Baranova N.B., Zel’dovich B.Ya. Usp. Fiz. Nauk, 127, 421 (1979).
4. Conclusions
We have developed a new method for determining the optical
properties of planar metamaterials based on the calculation
of multipole moments of meta-atoms which, when applied to
the results of numerical simulation of interaction of light with
a planar metamaterial, allows one to study its optical and
polarisation properties. As an example of this method, we
have investigated the metamaterial with meta-atoms in the
form of H-shaped nanoparticles. We have calculated the mul-
tipole moments induced by the incident field in the nanopar-
ticles, and then the results have been used to calculate the
transmission and reflection coefficients, the far field and the
Stokes parameters. By combining the numerical results
obtained for the two linear polarisations of the incident wave,
we have constructed a solution for the circular polarisation of
the incident wave, and studied the properties of the metama-
terial for this case. In particular it has been shown that the
metamaterial in question in some frequency range converts
the incident circularly polarised wave into the elliptically
polarised wave and other direction of rotation. The results
obtained show that the proposed method is very accurate and
can be used in the analysis of arbitrary metamaterials.
This paper does not take into account the toroidal
moments [13] induced in the nanoparticles (the influence of
these moments in our case is negligible). When they are taken
into account, it is possible to further expand the method of
multipole moments. In addition, the method of multipole
moments allows one to calculate the effective parameters e
and m of the medium, and therefore can be used as an alterna-
tive to the method proposed in [10], which is, however, beyond
the scope of the research presented in this paper.
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