METAMATERIALS
KEY FACTS
Devices
- NIM Negative Refractive Index materials
- Loaded Waveguides
- Electromagnetic Lenses
- Resonant Cavities
- Smart Materials
Applications
- Security Imaging
- Healthcare Imaging
- Particle Acceleration
- Communication
- Radar
- Military
People involved
- Five
Resources
- 3D simulation tool
- multicore workstations
- grid
Main journals
- IEEE Microwave and Wireless Components Letters
- IEEE Trans. on Electron Devices
- IEEE Photonics Technology Letters
- Optical and Quantum Electronics
- Applied Physics
- International Journal of Electromagnetic Wave Applications
Main conferences
- Metamaterials’ 2012: Advanced Electromagnetic Materials in Microwave and Optics
- OWTNM Optical Waveguide Theory and Numerical Modelling
- CEM-TD Computational Electromagnetic Time Domain
Why it is important
Metamaterials (MMs) are exotic composite materials that display properties beyond all those available in previous synthetic materials. Metamaterials
- are of particular importance in electromagnetism because they show promise for optical and microwave applications such as new brands of modulators, band-pass filters, lenses, microwave couplers, and antenna radomes;
- affects electromagnetic waves by having structural features smaller than the wavespan of the electromagnetic radiation it interacts with;
- are used to realise the so-called negative-index materials (NIMs). These NIMs bring the concept of refractive index into a new domain of exploration and thus promise to create entirely new prospects for manipulating the electromagnetic radiation with revolutionary impacts on present-day technologies;
- have been shown to be the ideal candidate for the full exploitation of the potentials of the Terahertz (THz) systems.
Our mission
- Design and fabricate innovative MMs based devices for a wide range of applications;
- Develop new analytical and numerical tools for the analysis and design of MMs based devices;
- Exploit the MM technology for the design of innovative device for THz systems;
- Exploit the MM technology for the design of innovative device for Particle Accelerator technology.
What we did
- Developed a number of analytical and numerical tools, such as the Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) method, the Multiresolution Time Domain (MRTD) method, the Finite Volume Time Domain (FVTD) method, for the analysis and design of MMs based devices;
- Design of MMs based devices for a number of very different fields such as Telecommunications, All-Optical Signal Processing, Particle Accelerators, and more.
What we will do
- Development of innovative, highly efficient and accurate analytical and numerical tools for the analysis and design of novel MMs based devices;
- Design and fabrication of MMs based devices for particle accelerators;
- Design and fabrication of MMs based devices for the new emerging field of THz Systems.
Who we are looking for
Students that like interdisciplinary approaches, full of initiative and ready to overcome new frontiers. Electronics, physics, electromagnetism, materials science, chemistry, basics of programming are only some of the required backgrounds.
