<p>Recent advances in electromagnetics introduced tools that enable the creation of arti-</p><p>cial electromagnetic structures with exotic properties such as negative material pa-</p><p>rameters. The ability to express these parameters has experimentally demonstrated</p><p>using passive metamaterial structures. These structures, based on their passivity and</p><p>resonant properties, are typically associated with high loss and signicant bandwidth</p><p>limitations.</p><p>Enhancing and further exploring novel electromagnetic properties can be done</p><p>through embedding active circuits in the constitutive unit cells. Active elements</p><p>are able to supplement the passive inclusions to mitigate and overcome loss and</p><p>bandwidth limitations. The inclusion of these circuits also signcantly expands the</p><p>design space for the development of functional metamaterials and their potential</p><p>applications.</p><p>Due to the relative diculty of designing active circuits compared with passive</p><p>circuits, using active circuits in the construction of metamaterials is still an under-</p><p>developed area of research. By combining the two elds of active circuit design and</p><p>metamaterial design, we aim ll the functional active metamaterial design space.</p><p>This document provides the basis for understanding the design and synthesis of</p><p>functional active metamaterials.</p><p>To provide necessary background matter, chapter 1 will function as an introduc-</p><p>tion chapter, discussing how active electromagnetic metamaterials are created and characterized. There are also several required design techniques necessary to suc-</p><p>cessfully engineer a functional active metamaterial. The introduction will emphasize</p><p>on linking metamaterial unit cell response with RF/analog circuit design with a brief</p><p>introduction to the semiconductor physics important to aid in the understanding of</p><p>the full active metamaterial design and fabrication process.</p><p>The subsequent chapters detail our specic contributions to the eld of func-</p><p>tional active RF metamaterials. Chapter 2 introduces and characterizes a meta-</p><p>material designed to have a tunable quality factor (tunable resonant bandwidth).</p><p>This metamaterial is essentially passive but demonstrates the transistor's versatility</p><p>as a combination of tunable elements, motivating the use of embedding transistors</p><p>in metamaterials. After establishing a simple application of a transistor in a pas-</p><p>sive metamaterial, chapter 3 outlines the design and characterization of an active</p><p>metamaterial exhibiting the properties of loss cancellation and gain. Chapter 4 in-</p><p>troduces another active metamaterial with the ability to self-adapt to an incident</p><p>signal. Within the self-adapting system, several complex RF circuit systems are</p><p>simulatenously developed and implemented such as a self-oscillating mixer and a</p><p>phase locked loop. Conclusions and additional suggested future research directions</p><p>are discussed in chapter 5.</p><p>There are also several appendices attached at the end of this document that are</p><p>meant to assist future graduate students and other readers. The additional topics</p><p>include the experimental verication of a passive magnetic metamaterial acting as a</p><p>near eld parasitic, the stabilization and measurement of a tunnel diode, a discussion</p><p>on the challenges of realizing active inductors from discrete components, and a basic</p><p>strategy for creating a non-volatile metamaterial. It is my aim for these appendices</p><p>to help provide additional inspiration for future studies within the eld.</p> / Dissertation

<p>If electronics are ever to be completely replaced by optics, a significant possibility in the wake of the fiber revolution, it is likely that nonlinear materials will play a central and enabling role. Indeed, nonlinear optics is the study of the mechanisms through which light can change the nature and properties of matter and, as a corollary, how one beam or color of light can manipulate another or even itself within such a material. However, of the many barriers preventing such a lofty goal, the narrow and limited range of properties supported by nonlinear materials, and natural materials in general, stands at the forefront. Many industries have turned instead to artificial and composite materials, with homogenizable metamaterials representing a recent extension of such composites into the electromagnetic domain. In particular, the inclusion of nonlinear elements has caused metamaterials research to spill over into the field of nonlinear optics. Through careful design of their constituent elements, nonlinear metamaterials are capable of supporting an unprecedented range of interactions, promising nonlinear devices of novel design and scale. In this context, I cast the basic properties of nonlinear metamaterials in the conventional formalism of nonlinear optics. Using alternately transfer matrices and coupled mode theory, I develop two complementary methods for characterizing and designing metamaterials with arbitrary nonlinear properties. Subsequently, I apply these methods in numerical studies of several canonical metamaterials, demonstrating enhanced electric and magnetic nonlinearities, as well as predicting the existence of nonlinear magnetoelectric and off-diagonal nonlinear tensors. I then introduce simultaneous design of the linear and nonlinear properties in the context of phase matching, outlining five different metamaterial phase matching methods, with special emphasis on the phase matching of counter propagating waves in mirrorless parametric amplifiers and oscillators. By applying this set of tools and knowledge to microwave metamaterials, I experimentally confirm several novel nonlinear phenomena. Most notably, I construct a backward wave nonlinear medium from varactor-loaded split ring resonators loaded in a rectangular waveguide, capable of generating second-harmonic opposite to conventional nonlinear materials with a conversion efficiency as high as 1.5\%. In addition, I confirm nonlinear magnetoelectric coupling in two dual gap varactor-loaded split ring resonator metamaterials through measurement of the amplitude and phase of the second-harmonic generated in the forward and backward directions from a thin slab. I then use the presence of simultaneous nonlinearities in such metamaterials to observe nonlinear interference, manifest as unidirectional difference frequency generation with contrasts of 6 and 12 dB in the forward and backward directions, respectively. Finally, I apply these principles and intuition to several plasmonic platforms with the goal of achieving similar enhancements and configurations at optical frequencies. Using the example of fluorescence enhancement in optical patch antennas, I develop a semi-classical numerical model for the calculation of field-induced enhancements to both excitation and spontaneous emission rates of an embedded fluorophore, showing qualitative agreement with experimental results, with enhancement factors of more than 30,000. Throughout these series of works, I emphasize the indispensability of effective design and retrieval tools in understanding and optimizing both metamaterials and plasmonic systems. Ultimately, when weighed against the disadvantages in fabrication and optical losses, the results presented here provide a context for the application of nonlinear metamaterials within three distinct areas where a competitive advantage over conventional materials might be obtained: fundamental science demonstrations, linear and nonlinear anisotropy engineering, and extremely compact resonant all-optical devices.</p> / Dissertation

Nanophotonics is an emerging research field that deals with interaction between light and matter in a sub-micron length scale. Nanophotonic devices have found an increasing number of applications in many areas including optical communication, microscopy, sensing, and solar energy harvesting especially during the past two decades. Among all nanophotonic devices, three main areas, namely photonic crystals, optical metamaterials and plasmonic devices, gain dominant interest in the photonic society owning to their potential impacts. This thesis studies the fabrication and characterization of three types of novel devices within the above-mentioned areas. They are respectively photonic-crystal (PhC) surface-mode microcavities, optical metamaterial absorbers, and plasmonic couplers. The devices are fabricated with modern lithography-based techniques in a clean room environment. This thesis particularly describes the critical electron-beam lithography step in detail; the relevant obstacles and corresponding solutions are addressed. Device characterizations mainly rely on two techniques: a vertical fiber coupling system and a home-made optical transmissivity/reflectivity setup. The vertical fiber coupling system is used for characterizing on-chip devices intended for photonic integrations, such as PhC surface-mode cavities and plasmonic couplers. The transmissivity/reflectivity setup is used for measuring the absorbance of metamaterial absorbers. This thesis presents mainly three nanophotonic devices, from fabrication to characterization. First, a PhC surface-mode cavity on a SOI structure is demonstrated. Through a side-coupling scheme, a system quality-factor of 6200 and an intrinsic quality-factor of 13400 are achieved. Such a cavity can be used as ultra-compact optical filter, bio-sensor and etc. Second, an ultra-thin, wide-angle metamaterial absorber at optical frequencies is realized. Experimental results show a maximum absorption peak of 88% at the wavelength of ~1.58μm. The ultra-fast photothermal effect possessed by such noble-metal-based nanostructure can potentially be exploited for making better solar cells. Finally, we fabricated an efficient coupler that channels light from a conventional dielectric waveguide to a subwavelength plasmonic waveguides and vice versa. Such couplers can combine low-loss dielectric waveguides and lossy plasmonic components onto one single chip, making best use of the two. / QC 20110524

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Canterbury, 2008. / Typescript (photocopy). "January, 2008." Includes bibliographical references (p. 179-206). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph.D)--Aerospace Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009. / Committee Chair: Ruzzene, Massimo; Committee Member: Hanagud, Sathya; Committee Member: Hofges, Dewey; Committee Member: Leamy, Michael; Committee Member: McDowell, David. Part of the SMARTech Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Collection.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2008.

Thesis (M.E.)--University of Canterbury, 2008. / Typescript (photocopy). "June 2008." Includes bibliographical references (p. [89]-92). Also available via the World Wide Web.

The scope of the present doctoral thesis has been the conception of a novel and efficient method for decelerating, over a range of frequencies, and completely 'stopping' light (zero group velocity, vg = 0) inside solid-state materials, at room temperature. To this end, we analytically show that an adiabatically tapered waveguide having a core of a lossless negative refractive index (NRI) metamaterial (MM) and claddings made of normal dielectrics can 'trap' a light pulse in such a way that each individual frequency component of the pulse is stopped at a different point along the waveguide, forming what we have called a 'trapped rainbow'. Crucially, it is shown that light can efficiently be in-coupled inside such a waveguide heterostructure from a normal dielectric waveguide, since with a suitable design one can achieve simultaneous thickness-, mode- and characteristic-impedance-matching between the two waveguides. A pertinent analysis reveals that the optical path length of a 'trapped' light ray (associated with a particular frequency component of the pulse), as well as the corresponding effective thickness of the NRI waveguide itself, become exactly zero. The ray circulates at the point where it is trapped in such a way that its trajectory forms what we have called (in view of its characteristic hourglass form) an 'optical clepsydra'. Furthermore, we introduce a novel methodology that allows for obtaining ultra- low- or zero-loss magnetic metamaterials over a continuous range of frequencies. We analytically prove that a higher-degrees-of-freedom MM design methodology based on equivalent electrical circuits with more than one mesh leads to metamaterial magnetism with either ultra-high figures-of-merit or with perfectly lossless performance over a broad range of frequencies. The so-obtained lossless metamaterial magnetism has a truly intrinsic character, and as such is scalable and can be implemented at any frequency regime, from the radio up to the optical domain.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate surface waves supported on a variety of metallic metasurfaces at microwave frequencies. The goal is to characterise the propagation of these surface waves in the plane of the structure and in some cases study how their presence gives rise to features in the scattering parameters of radiation incident on the metasurface.

Mid-Infrared thermal emission sources based on graphene were investigated both experimentally and simulated using the finite element method modelling software package COMSOL. Devices were fabricated by transferring graphene onto various substrates. The thermal emission of few-layer and single graphene on SiO2/Si, under a pulsed square wave drive current, was characterised using spatially resolved thermal emission measurements. It was determined that the devices with single-layer graphene maintained characteristic properties of graphene, while few-layer graphene displayed properties typical of a semi-metal. The effect of thermal management on the emission was investigated by comparing simulations to the emission from these devices and a hexagonal boron nitride encapsulated few-layer graphene device. Limiting the vertical heat dissipation was shown to improve device modulation speed. The emission from the graphene devices was determined to be grey-body in nature. Metamaterial structures, including ring resonators and split ring resonators, were integrated with the encapsulated devices in order to narrow the emission spectra. The emission and reflectance of the devices was characterised using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. A tuneable electromagnetically induced transparency like spectral response was observed for devices with metamaterial structures. The resonance peaks were shifted by altering the unit cell parameters. Finally, gallium nitride nano-rod arrays were investigated for the potential to incorporate both spectral control and thermal management into the underlying substrate, in addition to the possibility of the optical generation of graphene plasmons. It was determined that the conventional wet transfer technique was inadequate to transfer the graphene onto the nano-rods. Therefore, a modified transfer technique was utilised, with a significant improvement in the graphene coverage observed. Optical characterisation of the nano-rods using Fourier transform infrared reflectance spectroscopy indicated the excitation of localised surface phonon polaritons, while no evidence was observed in the graphene reflectance spectra of the generation of graphene plasmons.