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How to deal with the loss in plasmonics and metamaterials

Metal losses affect the performance of every plasmonic or metamaterial structure; dealing with them will determine the degree to which these structures will find practical applications.

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Figure 1: Energy balance in photonic and plasmonic structures.
Figure 2: Absorption of a quantum of electromagnetic energy ħω in a metal.
Figure 3: Dispersion of the real part of the dielectric permittivity ɛ of a polar crystal and the alternation of energy in it using SiC as an example.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported in part by the Mid-InfraRed Technologies for Health and the Environment (MIRTHE) Research Center (National Science Foundation).

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Correspondence to Jacob B. Khurgin.

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Khurgin, J. How to deal with the loss in plasmonics and metamaterials. Nature Nanotech 10, 2–6 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2014.310

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