Erratum to: “Comment on: ‘Electromagnetic wave propagation in single-wall carbon nanotubes’ [Phys. Lett. A 333 (2004) 303]” [Phys. Lett. A 364 (2007) 515]

Here we plot the correct form of Fig. 2 in [H. Khosravi, A. Moradi, Phys. Lett. A 364 (2007) 515].     

Comment on: “Electromagnetic wave propagation in single-wall carbon nanotubes” [Phys. Lett. A 333 (2004) 303]

In a recent article [L. Wei, Y.-N. Wang, Phys. Lett. A 333 (2004) 303], Li Wei and You-Nian Wang studied the propagation of electromagnetic wave in single-wall carbon nanotubes and presented different expressions of the dispersions relations of TE and TM modes, respectively. Here we have derived the correct form of the dispersion relation for TM mode on low-frequency electromagnetic wave. It is shown numerically that asymptotic behaviours of the TM and TE modes are quite similar in single-wall carbon nanotubes.     

The effect of shape distribution of inclusions on the frequency dependence of permeability in composites

Microwave material parameters of composites filled with Fe powder are measured as a function of frequency and volume fraction of the powder. The powder is prepared by mechanical milling of Fe in argon atmosphere. The host matrix of the composites is paraffin wax. The permittivity and permeability are measured in the frequency range 0.01-3 GHz. The measured frequency dependences of the permeability is considered in terms of the Bergman-Milton theory, with no additional suggestions imposed on the volume fraction dependence of effective material parameters of composites and the frequency dependence of intrinsic permeability of magnetic powders. The Ghosh-Fuchs theory is found to provide an excellent agreement with the measured permittivity and permeability of the composites, in contrast to the theories employing averaged demagnetization factor of inclusions, such as the Maxwell Garnet approximation. Therefore, the effective material parameters of the composites are affected greatly by the shape distribution of the powder particles. From the measured frequency dependence of permittivity and permeability, the intrinsic permeability of the powder is found.     

Rigorous electromagnetic analysis of dual-closed-surface microlens arrays

In this paper, we investigated the focal performance of the dual-closed-surface microlens arrays (DCSMAs) based on rigorous electromagnetic theory and boundary element method (BEM) in the case of TE polarization. The DCSMAs are designed with different substrate thickness and different distance between microlenses. DCSMAs designed according to different wavelengths are surveyed. The DCSMAs with different incident angles are also studied. Several focusing performance measures, such as the focal spot size, the focal position on the preset focal plane, the diffraction efficiency and the normalized transmitted power, are presented. Numerical results indicate the DCSMAs with different parameters can implement focusing beams and the focal performance of DCSMAs is easily influenced by the substrate thickness and the incident wavelength. Furthermore, the optimal thickness for the maximal diffraction efficiency of the DCSMAs is given. It is expected that the DCSMAs may be used as a parallel processing device in micro-optics systems.     

Total reflection of electromagnetic waves propagating from an isotropic medium to an indefinite metamaterial

The existence conditions for total reflection and the corresponding critical angle at the interface separating an isotropic medium and an indefinite metamaterial for TE- and TM-polarized electromagnetic waves are obtained. For different kinds of indefinite metamaterial, there appear different total reflection phenomena. Particularly, the anomalous total reflection in which the incident angle is smaller than the critical angle and the Brewster’s angle can be smaller than the critical angle can occur for anti-cutoff medium. Furthermore, the omnidirectional total reflection exists for the always cutoff medium and anti-cutoff medium. The total reflection depends on the thickness of indefinite metamaterial when the indefinite metamaterial is finite, and the photon tunneling phenomenon can occur when the thickness of indefinite metamaterial is smaller than wavelength.     

Frequency Response of Multilayer Media Comprised of Double-Negative and Double-Positive Slabs

We present the interactions of the electromagnetic waves with multilayer media formed by double-negative and double-positive slabs to find the frequency response of the structure. The double-negative slabs are analytically realized by using the frequency dispersive cold plasma medium. Numerical examples are performed using an in-house developed simulation programme code. The variation of the reflectance and the transmittance with the emphasis on the plasma frequencies is observed in these examples.     

Electric and magnetic losses and gains in determining the sign of refractive index

Within the framework of classic electromagnetic theories, we have studied the sign of refractive index of optical medias with the emphases on the roles of the electric and magnetic losses and gains. Starting from the Maxwell equations for an isotropic and homogeneous media, we have derived the general form of the complex refractive index and its relation with the complex electric permittivity and magnetic permeability, i.e. , in which the intrinsic electric and magnetic losses and gains are included as the imaginary parts of the complex permittivity and permeability, respectively, as  = _r + i_i and μ = μ_r + iμ_i. The electric and magnetic losses are present in all passive materials, which correspond, respectively, to the positive imaginary permittivity and permeability _i > 0 and μ_i > 0. The electric and magnetic gains are present in materials where external pumping sources enable the light to be amplified instead of attenuated, which correspond, respectively, to the negative imaginary permittivity and permeability _i < 0 and μ_i < 0. We have analyzed and determined uniquely the sign of the refractive index, for all possible combinations of the four parameters _r, μ_r, _i, and μ_i, in light of the relativistic causality. A causal solution requires that the wave impedance be positive Re{Z} > 0. We illustrate the results for all cases in tables of the sign of refractive index. One of the most important messages from the sign tables is that, apart from the well-known case where simultaneously  < 0 and μ < 0, there are other possibilities for the refractive index to be negative n < 0, for example, for _r < 0, μ_r > 0, _i > 0, and μ_i > 0, the refractive index is negative n < 0 provided μ_i/_i > μ_r/_r.     

Chiral planar waveguide for guiding single-mode backward wave

Single-mode backward wave is shown to be guided in a planar dielectric waveguide with a strong chiral core. The significant difference of such a waveguide from the traditional one is the guidance of single-mode backward wave, without using negative permittivity and/or negative permeability. In the design, we generalize the idea of total internal reflection to the chiral medium and make a numerical analysis on the reflection with oblique incidence. We deduce rigorously a general solution of incident wave on the boundary of two arbitrary chiral magneto-electric media. We observe that the impedance matching can eliminate the coupling between two eigenwaves in chiral media. With strong chiral core and the matched impedance with cladding, one eigenwave becomes a backward wave and can be guided without transferring to the other eigenwave. If a single-mode propagation condition is satisfied, we will get single-mode backward guided wave. A special interface has been designed to prevent the forward wave entering the waveguide from the source.     

Transmission Properties of One-Dimensional Photonic Crystals Containing Anisotropic Metamaterials

The transmission properties of one-dimensional photonie crystals （1DPCs） containing anisotropic metamaterials are theoretically studied. It is shown that the 1DPCs can possess a similar zero average index （zero-n） gaps, the edges of zero-~ gap are weakly dependent on the incident angles, scale length and the polarization of the electromagnetic wave. When an impurity is introduced, a defect mode appears inside the zeron gap with a very weak dependence on incident angles and sealing. It is found that in such photonic crystals, a transmitted Gaussian pulse with its carrier frequency lying in the lower gap edge, in the defect mode and in the bandgap, can experience a positive or negative group delay and hence a subluminal, ultra.slow or superluminal propagation with small distortions. These properties of the photonic crystals have potential applications in the transfer of information.     

Unique properties of microwave in interlayer exchange-coupled trilayer ferromagnetic films associated with negative imaginary part of permeability

Based upon Landau-Lifshitz equation and Maxwell's equations, we theoretically investigated properties of normally incident microwave propagation in interlayer exchange-coupled trilayer ferromagnetic film. It is found that, near resonance frequency of optic mode, imaginary part of permeability of one ferromagnetic layer is smaller than zero unusually, i.e., the ferromagnetic layer may be taken as an active medium. Thus a number of unique electromagnetic properties are presented, such as, the ferromagnetic layer becomes a left-handed material near low side of the resonance frequency of optic mode, and both phase velocity and time-averaged Poynting flow of the usually defined forward wave are negative simultaneously near high side of the resonance frequency. This work provides a feasible active medium to demonstrate the unique microwave properties.     

Abrupt change of reflectivity from the strongly anisotropic metamaterial

The wave reflection from a non-magnetic anisotropic metamaterial, whose principal elements of the permittivity tensor have different signs, is investigated in this paper. It is found that, if the orientation of the optical axis is properly chosen, an extremely small change of the transverse wave number will lead to a dramatically change of the reflectivity at the glancing incidence. The physical insight for this abrupt change of reflectivity is also given by the analysis of the imaginary part of the k-surface. Since the metamaterial discussed here have been experimental realized from GHz to optical frequencies, the proposed abrupt change property of reflectivity may find some potential applications in various calibration devices, because of its extremely sensitivity to the transverse wave number.     

A Formula of Propagating Beams Driven by Few-Cycle Gaussian Pulse in Dispersive Media

A formula is developed to describe the propagation of beams driven by few-cycle Gaussian pulse in a media with group velocity dispersion （GVD）. With the method, the spatiotemporal evolution of the pulsed beam can be straightforwardly quantified as long as the monochromatic beam solutions in free space, which have been widely investigated in previous works, are known. The method makes it possible to analytically deal with the few-cycle pulsed beams with transverse profiles other than the Gaussian one, which is, to our knowledge, the one mainly investigated previously, in GVD media.     

A polarization-dependent wide-angle three-dimensional metamaterial absorber

In this paper, a polarization-dependent wide-angle three-dimensional metamaterial absorber with a near-unity absorbance was presented. The metamaterial absorber structure is composed of coplanar electric and magnetic resonators. By carefully adjusting the structural dimensions, less-than-unity ε and/or μ can be realized. To match the impedance of free space, the structural dimensions were adjusted so that ε=μ, which guarantees minimum reflection. Since the resonance-based structure is made of metallic resonators and lossy substrates, the imaginary part of refractive index is large, which guarantees strong absorption of transmitted waves. Full-wave simulations confirmed the effectiveness of the proposed three-dimensional metamaterial absorber.     

Tunable negative index metamaterial using yttrium iron garnet

A magnetic field tunable, broadband, low-loss, negative refractive index metamaterial is fabricated using yttrium iron garnet (YIG) and a periodic array of copper wires. The tunability is demonstrated from 18 to 23 GHz under an applied magnetic field with a figure of merit of 4.2 GHz/kOe. The tuning bandwidth is measured to be 5 GHz compared to 0.9 GHz for fixed field. We measure a minimum insertion loss of 4 dB (or 5.7 dB/cm) at 22.3 GHz. The measured negative refractive index bandwidth is 0.9 GHz compared to 0.5 GHz calculated by the transfer function matrix theory and 1 GHz calculated by finite element simulation.     

A Zone Plate as a Tunable Terahertz Filter

A broadband tunable terahertz filter based on a zone plate is demonstrated in our terahertz time domain spec- trometer. The central bandpass frequency covers the whole spectral range of the terahertz wave emitted from a ZnTe emitter, from 0.5 THz to 2.5 THz, and can be tuned continuously by simply moving the zone plate along the terahertz beam path. The peak transmission is about 40% and the bandwidth varies from 0.16 THz to 0.25 THz at different bandpass frequencies when the aperture size is kept constant.     

Investigation of one-dimensional photonic crystals composed of dispersive materials

One-dimensional photonic crystals (1DPCs) composed of dispersive materials (including negative refractive index materials, negative μ materials, and negative ? materials) are proposed. The dependence of the band gaps on the angle of incidence and thickness scale are investigated by using the transfer matrix method. Simulation results show that the band gaps of these dispersive material 1DPC are insensitive to the thickness scale. The defect modes of these doped 1DPCs behave specially when the thickness of the defect layer, the angle of incidence and the thickness scale of PC change.     

Independent Modulation of Omnidirectional Defect Modes in Single-Negative Materials Photonic Crystal with Multiple Defects

Single-negative materials based on photonic crystal with multiple defect layers are designed and the free modulation of defect modes is studied. The results show that the multi-defect structure can avoid the interference between the defect states. Therefore, the designed double defect modes in the zero effective-phase gap can be adjusted independently by changing the thickness of different defect layers. In addition, the two tunable defect modes have the omnidirectional characteristics. This multi-defect structure with above-mentioned two advantages has potential applications in modern optical devices such as tunable omnidirectional filters.     

Intensity transformation of vector Bessel beams using a multilayer system

We theoretically investigate the generation of vector Bessel beams of the order m using a phase shifted superposition of TE and TM electromagnetic Bessel beams. Such Bessel beams are characterized by the intensity profile described by the superposition of squared Bessel functions of the orders (m-1) and (m+1). We derive the conditions for creating the special distributions of the intensity, which are determined by only one Bessel function, or . We offer the approach of intensity transformation based on the Bessel beam transmission through a multilayer system. Finally, we reveal the perfect intensity transformation transferring the whole energy from - to -profile of intensity distribution.     

The finite-thickness model applied to designs of closed-boundary cylindrical microlenses with small f-numbers

Instead of the existing zero-thickness model (ZTM), the finite-thickness model (FTM) is employed to designs of closed-boundary cylindrical microlenses (CBCMs) with small f-numbers based on the wave-front interference principle. To demonstrate the superiority of the FTM to the ZTM in the design of CBCMs, focal performance of all the designed microlenses is investigated by the rigorous boundary element method (BEM). For CBCMs with small f-numbers, numerical results by the BEM reveal that the designed CBCMs by using the FTM possess better focal performance than the designed CBCMs by using the ZTM, such as a more exact real focal position, a smaller focal spot size, and a higher diffraction efficiency.