Optical Metamaterials
Fundamentals and Applications
This book deals with optical metamaterials – artificially structured materials with
nanoscale inclusions and strikingly unconventional properties at optical frequencies.
These materials can be treated as macroscopically homogeneous media and can exhibit
a variety of unusual and exciting responses to light. Man-made materials with
subwavelength inclusions have been purposely utilized by artists and craftsmen for
centuries, as indicated by a number of glass vessels ranging from the late Roman
era to the Renaissance period. However, optical metamaterials have flourished only
in the present century thanks to combined advances in nanofabrication, numerical
modeling, and characterization tools. In only a few years, the field of optical metamaterials
has emerged as one of the most exciting topics in the science of light, with
stunning and unexpected outcomes that have repeatedly fascinated researchers, scientists,
and even the general public.
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