This thesis presents both theoretical and experimental investigations of the performance and capabilities of frequency selective surfaces (FSS) applied at THz frequencies. The aim is to explore and extend the use of FSS, traditionally limited to microwave frequencies, towards the THz regime of the spectrum, where interesting applications such as imaging, sensing and communications exist. The contribution of this work lies in three main areas within the scope of THz FSS, namely, performance, prototyping and applications. Unlike microwave FSS where extensive research has been performed to evaluate the performance of different FSS designs, particular problems arise at THz frequencies, significantly, the ohmic losses. While a few notable studies can be found on the issue of ohmic losses, part of this thesis investigates, for the first time, the power dissipation due to the presence of both ohmic and dielectric losses, in relation to the power stored in the vicinity of the FSS, the currents induced in the elements of the array and the array’s terminal impedance. By doing so, a better understanding of the performance of THz FSS has been given in terms of their quality factor, allowing for design guidelines previously unavailable. In order to demonstrate multiband operation experimentally, a novel fabrication process has been designed and developed to manufacture capacitive or dipole-based THz FSS on a dielectric layer. Dry deep-reactive ion etching has been employed in order to avoid the use of wet etching to provide better control of etch characteristics. Various FSS operating around 15THz have been demonstrated experimentally. In addition, THz FSS have been investigated theoretically in the realm of three different applications, namely, multiband operation, sensing capability and reconfigurability. Multiband characteristics using single-screen FSS have been achieved by perturbed dipole FSS exhibiting up to four resonances due to the excitation of even and odd current modes. After studying the near-fields in perturbed FSS, it has been found that this type of FSS represent a very attractive candidate for sensing applications due to the revealed near-field enhancement phenomena related to the excitation of the odd mode, where currents flow in opposite directions. Finally, a novel tunability approach to reach frequency reconfigurability by varying the near-field coupling between two closely spaced layers in a dual-layer configuration has been proposed. A MEMS movable four-arm membrane has been suggested to vary the distance between the two layers mechanically, leading to the frequency tuning effect. This approach has been shown to be particularly suitable for THz frequencies, and has been applied to demonstrate theoretically tunable FSS and other periodic structures, such as artificial magnetic conductors and dielectric gratings.

The work done in this thesis focuses on the design of a square-shaped 20-way metamaterial power divider which is fabricated in microstrip technology and operates at 1 GHz. The divider comprises 12 square-shaped left-handed unit cells and 13 square-shaped right-handed unit cells, and these unit cells have the same size and are placed in a checker-board tessellation, where the left-handed unit cells are connected only to right-handed unit cells and vice versa. The divider is based upon the infinite wavelength phenomenon in two-dimensions, and this means that the insertion phase between any two ports of the left-handed unit cell is equal, but with opposite sign, to that of the right-handed unit cell. The divider gives an equal-amplitude equal-phase power division from the central input port to the output ports which are located on a straight line on each side. Thus, it is convenient to integrate with, or interconnect to, other planar circuits in a system, such as power amplifier modules. The design concept can be extended to an N-way power divider, where N = 4n and n is an odd integer.

In this dissertation the proper determination and allowable signs of the effective parameters of metamaterial structures will be examined. First, a method that was commonly used to determine the presence of a negative index of refraction will be discussed. It will be shown that this method, which relies on the appearance of transmission peaks in the region where the real parts of the effective permittivity and permeability are expected to be negative, does not provide sufficient evidence that a negative index exists. Two alternate methods will then be presented that can be used to properly determine the sign of the index. Then, the form of the index in media that exhibit backward wave propagation will be examined from a purely three dimensional wave propagation point of view. It will be shown that in an isotropic medium backward wave propagation requires that the index be negative and in an anisotropic medium it requires that the index be negative along at least one of the three principal axes. In short, the necessary and sufficient condition for the negative index of refraction is the existence of the backward wave. Next, a technique commonly used to retrieve the effective parameters in metamaterials from transmission and reflection data will be considered. It will be shown that this retrieval technique can lead to unphysical claims that the imaginary parts of the effective permittivity or permeability can be negative even though the medium remains passive. By comparing the effective parameters obtained analytically and from the retrieval technique it will be shown that these unphysical claims are the result of error in the numerical simulations. The concepts of causality and analyticity will also be discussed by considering the Lorentzian model and it will be shown that this model does not allow the imaginary parts of the permittivity or permeability to be negative in the metamaterials consisting of split ring resonators and split wires.

In this dissertation the proper determination and allowable signs of the effective parameters of metamaterial structures will be examined. First, a method that was commonly used to determine the presence of a negative index of refraction will be discussed. It will be shown that this method, which relies on the appearance of transmission peaks in the region where the real parts of the effective permittivity and permeability are expected to be negative, does not provide sufficient evidence that a negative index exists. Two alternate methods will then be presented that can be used to properly determine the sign of the index. Then, the form of the index in media that exhibit backward wave propagation will be examined from a purely three dimensional wave propagation point of view. It will be shown that in an isotropic medium backward wave propagation requires that the index be negative and in an anisotropic medium it requires that the index be negative along at least one of the three principal axes. In short, the necessary and sufficient condition for the negative index of refraction is the existence of the backward wave. Next, a technique commonly used to retrieve the effective parameters in metamaterials from transmission and reflection data will be considered. It will be shown that this retrieval technique can lead to unphysical claims that the imaginary parts of the effective permittivity or permeability can be negative even though the medium remains passive. By comparing the effective parameters obtained analytically and from the retrieval technique it will be shown that these unphysical claims are the result of error in the numerical simulations. The concepts of causality and analyticity will also be discussed by considering the Lorentzian model and it will be shown that this model does not allow the imaginary parts of the permittivity or permeability to be negative in the metamaterials consisting of split ring resonators and split wires.

This research focuses on the development of engineered materials, also known as meta- materials, with desirable effective constitutive parameters: electric permittivity (epsilon) and magnetic permeability (mu) to decouple antennas and noise mitigation from electromagnetic systems. An interesting phenomenon of strong relevance to a wide range of problems, where electromagnetic interference is of concern, is the elimination of propagation when one of the constitutive parameters is negative. In such a scenario, transmission of electromagnetic energy would cease, and hence the coupling between radiating systems is reduced. In the first part of this dissertation, novel electromagnetic artificial media have been developed to alleviate the problem of mutual coupling between high-profile and ow-profile antenna systems. The developed design configurations are numerically simulated, and experimentally validated. In the mutual coupling problem between high-profile antennas, a decoupling layer based on artificial magnetic materials (AMM) has been developed and placed between highly-coupled monopole antenna elements spaced by less than Lambda/6, where Lambda is the operating wavelength of the radiating elements. The decoupling layer not only provides high mutual coupling suppression (more than 20-dB) but also maintains good impedance matching and low correlation between the antenna elements suitable for use in Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) communication systems. In the mutual coupling problem between low-profile antennas, novel sub-wavelength complementary split-ring resonators (CSRRs) are developed to decouple microstrip patch antenna elements. The proposed design con figuration has the advantage of low-cost production and maintaining the pro file of the antenna system unchanged without the need for extra layers. Using the designed structure, a 10-dB reduction in the mutual coupling between two patch antennas has been achieved. The second part of this dissertation utilizes electromagnetic artificial media for noise mitigation and reduction of undesirable electromagnetic radiation from high-speed printed-circuit boards (PCBs) and modern electronic enclosures with openings (apertures). Numerical results based on the developed design configurations are presented, discussed, and compared with measurements. To alleviate the problem of simultaneous switching noise (SSN) in high-speed microprocessors and personal computers, a novel technique based on cascaded CSRRs has been proposed. The proposed design has achieved a wideband suppression of SSN and maintained a robust signal integrity performance. A novel use of electromagnetic bandgap (EBG) structures has been proposed to mitigate undesirable electromagnetic radiation from enclosures with openings. By using ribbon of EBG surfaces, a significant suppression of electromagnetic radiation from openings has been achieved.

The emergence of microwave energy harvesting systems, commonly referred to as rectenna or Wireless Power Transfer (WPT) systems, has enabled numerous applications in many areas since their primary goal is to recycle the ambient microwave energy. In such systems, microstrip antennas are used as the main source for collecting the electromagnetic energy. In this work, a novel collector based on metamaterial particles, in what is known as a Split Ring Resonator (SRR), to harvest electromagnetic energy is presented. Such collectors are much smaller in size and more efficient than existing collectors (antennas). A feasibility study of SRRs to harvest electromagnetic energy is conducted using a full wave simulator (HFSS). To prove the concept, a 5.8 GHz SRR is designed and fabricated and then tested using a power source, an Infiniium oscilloscope and a commercially available patch antenna array. When excited by a plane wave with an H-field normal to the structure, a voltage build up of 611 mV is measured across a surface mount resistive load inserted in the gap of a single loop SRR. In addition, a new efficiency concept is introduced, taking into account the microwave-to-AC conversion efficiency which is missing from earlier work. Finally, a 9X9 SRR array is compared with a 2X2 patch antenna array, both placed in a fixed footprint. The simulation results show that the array of SRRs can harvest electromagnetic energy more efficiently and over a wider bandwidth range.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2007. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 169-173).

Le concept de metamatériaux est apparu au cours des années 2000 avec la réalisation de structures artificielles permettant une propagation non-conventionnelles des ondes électromagnétiques. La réponse électromagnétique des metamatériaux est liée à la présence d’éléments optiquement résonants, de dimensions inférieures aux longueurs d’onde d’excitation, arrangés dans une structure périodique prédéfinie.Afin de produire les structures géométriques inhérentes au design de metamatériaux, l’auto-assemblage des copolymères à blocs constitue une méthodologie émergente. En effet, les structures périodiques produites lors de la séparation de phase de ces matériaux peuvent être utilisées en tant que canevas pour la création de réseaux périodiques de nanoparticules. L’objectif principal de ces travaux de thèse a ainsi été de démontrer la validité de cette stratégie pour la réalisation, d’une manière simple et reproductible, d’une large gamme de nanostructures et de corréler les paramètres structuraux de ces réseaux de nanoparticules aux propriétés optiques.Une première démonstration de ce concept a été obtenue en utilisant un copolymère à blocs formant une structure lamellaire afin de réaliser des surfaces possédant des indices de réfraction élevés. La formation contrôlée de particules métalliques au sein de cette structure a permis de produire des surfaces décorées par ces nanoparticules, pour lesquelles une corrélation entre la teneur en or et l’indice de réfraction résultant a pu être établie. Ce concept a été poussé plus en avant en utilisant une gamme des copolymères à blocs de différentes masses molaires et formant une morphologie cylindrique. En effet, un contrôle accru des paramètres structuraux des réseaux de nanoparticules (diamètre et distance inter-particules) a permis la réalisation de metasurfaces aux propriétés optiques variées. Enfin la mise au point d’une stratégie d’auto-assemblage itérative nous a permis d’obtenir des metasurfaces au design complexe, avec notamment la production de surfaces décorées par des clusters bimétalliques ou des multicouches hybrides polymère/metal. Dans l’ensemble des cas, les surfaces décorées de nanoparticules ont été minutieusement caractérisées par des techniques de microscopie et de diffraction RX afin de mieux appréhender les propriétés optiques dérivées d’analyses d’ellipsométrie spectroscopique à angle variable. / The concept of metamaterials appeared in the years 2000 with the achievement of artificial structures enabling nonconventional propagation of electromagnetic waves. The electromagnetic response of metamaterials is based on the presence of optically resonant elements of sub-wavelength size and well-designed morphology and organization.In order to create controlled geometrical structures inherent to metamaterials design, block copolymer self-assembly constitutes an emerging strategy. Indeed, the periodic structures inherent to their segregation behavior can be used as scaffolds to create various regular or ordered nanoparticles arrays. The main objectives of this study is to demonstrate that block copolymer can indeed lead to a high level of control of a variety of designed nanostructures, in an easy and scalable method, and to correlate the structural parameters of the nanoparticles arrays and their optical properties.As a first demonstration, a lamellar-forming (poly(styrene)-block-poly(2-vinylpyridine) was used to create high refractive index surfaces. The selective and customizable metal incorporation within the out-of-plane lamellae produces azimuthally isotropic metallic nanostructures of defined geometries, for which a clear relationship between the gold content and the refractive index was established. Further studies were dedicated to the correlation between the geometrical parameters of the nanoparticles arrays and the optical properties through the macromolecular engineering of a series of cylinder-forming block copolymers having a wide range of molecular weights. Through this strategy, the particle diameter and the inter-particle distance were tuned leading to the production of metasurfaces with various optical characteristics. More complex metasurface designs were also obtained using a layer-by-layer self-assembly strategy, i.e. bimetallic raspberry nanoclusters or layered hybrid (metallic/polymer) structures. In all cases, the nanoparticles arrays were thoroughly analyzed using microscopy and small-angle X-ray scattering techniques in order to better apprehend the optical properties derived from variable-angle spectroscopic ellipsometry analysis.

Alternative plasmonic materials of Transparent Nitrides and Conductive Oxides (TNCOs) including Indium Tin Oxide (ITO), Al-doped ZnO (AZO) and Titanium Nitride (TiN), have been proposed as novel material platforms for Si-compatible plasmonics and metamaterials, showing enhanced light-matter interaction over a broad spectral range. It has been recently shown that these materials feature reduced optical losses compared with conventional noble metals such as Au and Ag in the visible and near-infrared spectral range. However, it is still an open challenge to tailor the structural and optical properties of these materials, and to further reduce their optical losses, in order to effectively utilize them in photonic devices. In this thesis work, I demonstrate wide tunability of the optical and structural properties of ITO, AZO and TiN thin films, by using post-deposition annealing treatments, enabling significant reduction of their optical losses. By measuring the optical bandgaps of the investigated materials, I show that the tunability of the optical properties originates from the modulation of the free carrier concentration induced by the annealing treatment. Moreover, I perform XRD characterization of the fabricated films, indicating that the annealing also effectively tunes the grain size, which is consistent with the change of the optical properties. Eventually, I investigate the role of the annealing gases for ITO and AZO, demonstrating that free-carrier modulation in ITO and AZO is due to the change in the density of oxygen vacancies after post-deposition annealing. In particular, TNCOs possess epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) condition in near-infrared range with optical loss ε^"<1, thus providing enhanced internal fields in the medium at the ENZ condition. In collaboration with Prof. Nader Engheta and the previous post-doc in our group Dr. Antonio Capretti, we demonstrate enhanced second-harmonic generation (SHG) and third-harmonic generation (THG) from ITO thin films driven by ENZ condition. It results that the SHG generation efficiency is comparable with that of a crystalline quartz plate of thickness 0.5 mm, and that the THG generation efficiency is ∼600 times larger than crystalline silicon. As an application for the fabricated TiN material, I investigate PL intensity and lifetime in Hyperbolic Metamaterials (HMMs) coupled with emitting Si Quantum Dots (QDs). In collaboration with Hiroshi Sugimoto in Prof. Minoru Fujii’s group and the previous post-doc in our group Dr. Sandeep Inampudi, we demonstrate up to 1.6-times enhanced decay rate of QDs emission. Photonic devices based on TNCO plasmonic materials offer an effective approach for the engineering of novel Si-based photonic devices with enhanced light-matter coupling over a broad spectral range. As an application for the fabricated ITO, in collaboration with Hongwei Zhao in Prof. Jonathan Klamkin’s group, electro-absorption modulators are numerically investigated to show high extinction ration of greater than 6dB, while insertion loss is less than 1.3dB for wavelength range from 1.25 µm to 1.42 µm. Additionally, we demonstrate tunable optical properties of ITO thin films in mid-infrared spectrum by thermal annealing of ITO in oxygen environment. In collaboration with Sajan Shrestha and Adam Overvig in Prof. NanFang Yu’s group, we fabricate 2D periodic arrays of ITO and show wide tuning of plasmonic resonances of ITO nanostructure from 4 µm to 10 µm. Combining with the tunability of ITO thin films in near-infrared, the ITO material platform provides a promising method for the control and engineering of Si-based tunable plasmonic and metamaterial devices in the infrared spectrum. Finally, in collaboration with my colleague Ren Wang, we experimentally demonstrate silicon nanodisk arrays with tunable anapole mode excitation in the visible spectrum. The proposed high index nanostructures can be used to enhance absorption rate for applications in semiconductor photodetector.

Metamaterials display unusual electromagnetic properties, such as, a negative effective permeability and negative effective permittivity. This has sparked much interest due to possibility of negative refraction which was later confirmed by experiments. The ability of magnetically coupled resonant circuits to display an effective permeability lead to the discovery of magneto-inductive waves. These waves are only supported on arrays of magnetically coupled resonant circuits. Research into magneto-inductive waves has been largely concentrated on their use in filters and their potential use in magnetic resonance imaging. However, some work has proposed the use of magneto-inductive waveguides as a data transfer medium. This report builds on previous work which found that an optimum existed for terminal-waveguide coupling, and aims to investigate the application of magneto-inductive waves in data transfer systems. A brief overview of the topic is given along with a description of the underlying characteristics. Factors that affect the capacity of magneto-inductive wave data transfer systems, such as inter element coupling, were identified. Two novel structures, both with the intent of increasing the bandwidth via different methods, are studied. One, by making a pseudo one-dimensional channel from a two-dimensional structure, and the other by using a dual-layer design to increase the coupling between adjacent elements. Both systems are modelled, using simple circuit theory and the impedance matrix method, and a comparison between simulated behaviour and experimental observation was made. There is discussion about the differences between experiment and simulation as well as their limitations. Magneto-inductive wave data transfer systems are eventually expected to support multiple terminals and as previous research only considered two-terminal systems, an investigation into the response of a one- and two-dimensional system with a blocking terminal was undertaken. The system was modelled, again using simple circuit theory and the impedance matrix method, and simulation and experiment were compared. As a whole, the simulations showed good agreement with experiments, after some initial adjustments. Both one- and two-dimensional systems showed that their performance was not severely effected by a blocking terminal. This suggests that magneto-inductive waveguides could support more terminals.