Metamaterials

Professor Richard Averitt’s group, in collaboration with Professor Zhang in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, has demonstrated reconfigurable metamaterials. Metamaterials consist of sub-wavelength metallic elements that resonantly respond to electromagnetic radiation. For example, split ring resonators (SRRs) fabricated from gold can be patterned into arrays to create materials with unique electromagnetic properties.

The figure below shows a portion of a reconfigurable metamaterial structure designed to operate at far-infrared (terahertz) frequencies. Thermal actuation causes the SRRs to bend out of plane. In this way, it is possible to tune the effective electric or magnetic response. The results of these studies were published in Physical Review Letters.

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