Resonant All-Dielectric Optical Metamaterials

Abstract

Absorption loss continues to be one of the primary impediments to the application of metal-based metamaterials at optical frequencies. Dielectric metamaterials offer one potential solution to this issue by eliminating Ohmic loss, allowing highly transparent metamaterials while also preserving the freedom to freely engineer the optical properties. These metamaterials are formed from semiconductor-based unit cells that exhibit both electric and magnetic Mie resonances, allowing us to manipulate the optical properties of the composite. In this thesis, I present my efforts to realize resonant purely dielectric metamaterials which exhibit low absorption loss at optical frequencies. Such developments will hopefully lead to novel compact optical devices with superior performance and ultimately practical applications. In particular, I will present how artificially-designed dielectric nano-structures can be applied for efficiently controlling light emission, propagation, bio-sensing, and enhancing nonlinear light-matter interaction with greatly improved performance over plasmonic devices.