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Absolute extinction cross-section of individual magnetic split-ring resonators

Nature Photonics volume 2, pages 614–617 (2008)Cite this article

Abstract

Complete control of an electromagnetic wave requires access to its electric and magnetic vector components. Realizing this level of control with metamaterials has recently opened new avenues regarding negative refractive indices1,2 and invisibility cloaking3,4. The required microscopic building blocks are artificial electric and magnetic dipoles. Magnetic dipoles oscillating at optical frequencies have become available only recently in the form of man-made split-ring resonators5, essentially subwavelength resonant electromagnets. Previous experimental work has focused on arrays of electric and/or magnetic dipoles1,2,6,7. For further developments in this field, knowledge of the properties of the individual dipoles is highly desirable. In this paper, using a modulation technique8,9, we measure the absolute extinction cross-section of a single split-ring resonator for the first time. At the fundamental magnetic resonance, it is found to be about one-seventh of λ2 at a wavelength of λ = 1.4 µm, which is in excellent agreement with microscopic calculations.

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Figure 1: Determining the absolute extinction cross-section.
Figure 2: Measured absolute extinction cross-section spectra.
Figure 3: Calculated absolute cross-section spectra.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Costas M. Soukoulis for discussions. We acknowledge the support of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and the State of Baden-Württemberg through the DFG-Center for Functional Nanostructures (CFN) within subprojects A1.2, A1.5, A5.2 and A5.3 as well as by the BMBF-Verbund METAMAT and by the European Union project PHOME. The research of S.L. is also supported through a Helmholtz-Hochschul-Nachwuchsgruppe (VH-NG-232). The PhD research of N.F., M.K. and J.N. is further supported by the Karlsruhe School of Optics and Photonics (KSOP).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für Angewandte Physik, Universität Karlsruhe (TH), Wolfgang-Gaede-Straße 1, Karlsruhe, D-76131, Germany

    Martin Husnik, Matthias W. Klein, Nils Feth, Stefan Linden & Martin Wegener

  2. Institut für Nanotechnologie, Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe in der Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft, Karlsruhe, D-76021, Germany

    Nils Feth, Kurt Busch, Stefan Linden & Martin Wegener

  3. Institut für Theoretische Festkörperphysik, Universität Karlsruhe (TH), Wolfgang-Gaede-Straße 1, Karlsruhe, D-76131, Germany

    Michael König, Jens Niegemann & Kurt Busch

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  1. Martin Husnik
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Correspondence to Nils Feth.

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Husnik, M., Klein, M., Feth, N. et al. Absolute extinction cross-section of individual magnetic split-ring resonators. Nature Photon 2, 614–617 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2008.181

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