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Duke Cloak on Wallace and Gromit

Duke Cloak on Wallace and Gromit

The Duke "invisibility cloak" will be featured on Wallace and Gromit's World of Invention, a new BBC series highlighting invention. Sir John Pendry is interviewed about the cloak on the episode "Come to Your Senses," which will air on BBC1 at 7:30 pm, November 24. More information can be found…

Analytical theory of nonlinear metamaterials: design on demand

Analytical theory of nonlinear metamaterials: design on demand

Poutrina et al. developed an analytical approach allowing to relate a particular geometry of a metamaterial unit cell incorporating nonlinear elements to the effective nonlinear susceptibilities characterizing the resulting effective medium. The approach allows the prediction, analysis, and…

Quantitative characterization of nonlinear metamaterials

Quantitative characterization of nonlinear metamaterials

In a paper published in Applied Physics Letters, Larouche et al. present the first quantitative characterization of nonlinear metamaterials. Using an approach based on transfer matrices previously developed in the CMIP, they determine the quadratic nonlinear magnetic susceptibility of a slab of…

Acoustic cloaking transformations from attainable material properties

Acoustic cloaking transformations from attainable material properties

The acoustic "sisters" of electromagnetic invisibility cloaks are long-sought devices that could defeat sonars. The existence of two types of acoustic waves in elastic media, however, makes acoustic cloaking very hard to achieve. The paper by Yaroslav Urzhumov and co-workers, published recently…

Plasmonic Multi-Mode Interference Couplers

Plasmonic Multi-Mode Interference Couplers

The MMI coupler is a key component in optical integrated circuits. Its main function is to combine or split optical signals, enabling the development of powerful multiplexing devices and integrated sensors. In a paper published in Optics Express (September 28, 2009 issue), Yu-Ju Tsai and co-…

Electromagnetic source transformations using superellipse equations

Electromagnetic source transformations using superellipse equations

Transformation optics can be used to design media with unique properties for the manipulation of electromagnetic waves. The transformation optical approach can be used not only to control the path of light, but also to change the way that currents and charges (or sources) behave when they…

Duke to lead program on Transformation Optics sponsored by the Army Research Office

Duke to lead program on Transformation Optics sponsored by the Army Research Office

ECE Professor David Smith led a successful proposal team to secure $6.25M for a five year MURI titled Transformational Optical Metamaterials that aims to design optical media that can achieve functionality not obtainable by conventional optics. Smith plans to explore applications such as…

Dan Roberts - Winner of the Fannie and John Hertz Foundation Fellowship

Dan Roberts - Winner of the Fannie and John Hertz Foundation Fellowship

Dan Roberts was awarded a Fannie and John Hertz Foundation Fellowship for postgraduate study in the physical sciences. The Hertz Fellowship is merit based and widely considered to be one of the most prestigious graduate fellowships awarded. The fellowship provides approximately $250,000 of…

Broadband non-resonant metamaterial used for ground plane cloaking

Broadband non-resonant metamaterial used for ground plane cloaking

There has been a large amount of interest generated by recent work on invisibility cloaking. While the concept of invisibility has many corollaries in popular fiction which inspire the imagination, from the Harry Potter stories to Predator, researchers are taking only the first steps- both…

The transformation optical approach to antenna design

The transformation optical approach to antenna design

Transformation optics is a new tool for the design of electromagnetic media. Using transformation optics, researchers can visualize the interaction of certain complex materials with light as a warping of space. The physical basis underlying this connection, however, extends also to sources of…