Pendry discusses metamaterials, transformation optics & science of invisibility

The Center for Metamaterials and Integrated Plasmonics will host Sir John Pendry as a distinguished lecturer on Thursday, March 12th 2015. Professor Sir John Pendry is one of the UK’s leading physicists. Based at Imperial College London, his work on electromagnetic metamaterials has inspired researchers around the world and led to the development of a new field of research. In this lecture, Sir John will discuss many of these developments, some of which have made headlines around the world. Cloaks are already being designed and built that hide objects within them, but remain completely invisible to external observers. A new class of materials has created some extraordinary possibilities such as a negative refractive index, and lenses whose resolution is limited only by the precision with which we can manufacture them. The new materials, named metamaterials, have properties determined as much by their internal physical structure as by their chemical composition and the radical new properties to which they give access promise to transform our ability to control much of the electromagnetic spectrum. Electromagnetism encompasses much of modern technology. Its influence rests on our ability to deploy materials that can control the component electric and magnetic fields.

"Metamaterials, Transformation Optics and the Science of Invisibility"

Event Details:
Professor Sir John Pendry
Imperial College London
Date: Thursday, March 12th 2015Time: 12:00- 1:00pm
Location: Schiciano Auditrium, Fitzpatrick Building

Abstract: Electromagnetism encompasses much of modern technology. Its influence rests on our ability to deploy materials that can control the component electric and magnetic fields. A new class of materials has created some extraordinary possibilities such as a negative refractive index, and lenses whose resolution is limited only by the precision with which we can manufacture them. Cloaks have been designed and built that hide objects within them, but remain completely invisible to external observers. The new materials, named metamaterials, have properties determined as much by their internal physical structure as by their chemical composition and the radical new properties to which they give access promise to transform our ability to control much of the electromagnetic spectrum. The talk will be illustrated with examples of cloaks for static magnetic fields, for visible light as well as for microwaves.

Bio: John Pendry has made seminal contributions to surface science, disordered systems and photonics. His most recent work has introduced a new class of materials, metamaterials, whose electromagnetic properties depend on their internal structure rather than their chemical constitution. Pendry discovered that a Œperfect lens¹ manufactured from negatively refracting material would circumvent Abbé¹s diffraction limit to spatial resolution, which has stood for more than a century. His most recent innovation of Œtransformation optics¹ gives the metamaterial specifications required to rearrange electromagnetic field configurations at will, by representing the field distortions as a warping of the space in which they exist. In its simplest form the theory shows how we can direct field lines around a given obstacle and thus provide a Œcloak of invisibility¹, which was first realised at Duke in 2006