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Pulse generation scheme for flying electromagnetic doughnuts

Nikitas Papasimakis, Tim Raybould, Vassili A. Fedotov, Din Ping Tsai, Ian Youngs, and Nikolay I. Zheludev
Phys. Rev. B 97, 201409(R) – Published 23 May 2018
Physics logo See Synopsis: Metamaterials Could Produce Flying Doughnuts
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Abstract

Transverse electromagnetic plane waves are fundamental solutions of Maxwells equations. It is less known that a radically different type of solutions has been described theoretically, but has never been realized experimentally, that exist only in the form of short bursts of electromagnetic energy propagating in free space at the speed of light. They are distinguished from transverse waves by a doughnutlike configuration of electric and magnetic fields with a strong field component along the propagation direction. Here, we demonstrate numerically that such flying doughnuts can be generated from conventional pulses using a singular metamaterial converter designed to manipulate both the spatial and spectral structure of the input pulse. The ability to generate flying doughnuts is of fundamental interest, as they shall interact with matter in unique ways, including nontrivial field transformations upon reflection from interfaces and the excitation of toroidal response and anapole modes in matter, hence offering opportunities for telecommunications, sensing, and spectroscopy.

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  • Received 21 September 2017
  • Revised 19 April 2018

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.97.201409

©2018 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied PhysicsAtomic, Molecular & Optical

Synopsis

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Metamaterials Could Produce Flying Doughnuts

Published 23 May 2018

A proposed scheme for generating torus-shaped light pulses called flying doughnuts utilizes a metamaterial “sprinkled” with tiny resonators in a concentric ring pattern.

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Authors & Affiliations

Nikitas Papasimakis1, Tim Raybould1, Vassili A. Fedotov1, Din Ping Tsai2, Ian Youngs3, and Nikolay I. Zheludev1,4

  • 1Optoelectronics Research Centre and Centre for Photonic Metamaterials, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, United Kingdom
  • 2Department of Physics, National Taiwan University and Research Center for Applied Sciences, Academia Sinica, Taipei 10617, Taiwan
  • 3DSTL, Porton Down, Salisbury, SP4 0JQ, United Kingdom
  • 4The Photonics Institute and Centre for Disruptive Photonic Technologies, SPMS, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 637371

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Issue

Vol. 97, Iss. 20 — 15 May 2018

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