Ultra low-loss, isotropic 2D optical negative-index metamaterial based on hybrid metal-semiconductor nanowires

In the past few years, many of the fascinating and previously almost unconceivable properties predicted for those novel, artificial, man-made materials, so called metamaterials, were demonstrated to be not only a tangible reality, but a very useful one. However, plenty of the best achievements in that newly discovered field are far from having a direct translation to the, in many aspects more interesting, high frequency range, without being burdened not only by technological difficulties, but also conceptual ones. Of particular importance within the realm of optical metamaterials having a negative index of refraction, often designated negative-index metamaterials (NIM), is the issue of simultaneously achieving a strong response of the system and low associated losses. In the present work, we demonstrate the possibility to use hybrid metal-semiconductor nanowires to obtain an isotropic optical NIM, with very strong electric and magnetic responses, which exhibits extremely low losses (about two orders of magnitude better than present optical NIMs).

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