Latest Plasmonic metamaterials Stories

Researchers at the University of Southampton's Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) have created an artificial material, a metamaterial, with optical properties that can be controlled by electric signals. Photonic metamaterials are artificial materials created by precise and extremely fine structuring of conventional media using nanotechnology. They offer numerous new applications from cloaking to radically improved solar cells. However, the properties of metamaterials are usually fixed....

By measuring the unique properties of light on the scale of a single atom, researchers from Duke University and Imperial College, London, believe that they have characterized the limits of metal's ability in devices that enhance light. This field is known as plasmonics because scientists are trying to take advantage of plasmons, electrons that have been "excited" by light in a phenomenon that produces electromagnetic field enhancement. The enhancement achieved by metals at the nanoscale is...