Self - assembled tunable photonic hyper - crystals 1

Submitted for the MAR15 Meeting of The American Physical Society Self-assembled tunable photonic hyper-crystals1 IGOR SMOLYANINOV, University of Maryland, VERA SMOLYANINOVA, BRADLEY YOST, DAVID LAHNEMAN, THOMAS GRESOCK, Towson University, EVGENII NARIMANOV, Purdue University — We demonstrate a novel artificial optical material, the photonic hyper-crystal, which combines the most interesting features of hyperbolic metamaterials and photonic crystals. Similar to hyperbolic metamaterials, photonic hyper-crystals exhibit broadband divergence in their photonic density of states due to the lack of usual diffraction limit on the photon wave vector. On the other hand, similar to photonic crystals, hyperbolic dispersion law of extraordinary photons is modulated by forbidden gaps near the boundaries of photonic Brillouin zones. Three dimensional self-assembly of photonic hyper-crystals has been achieved by application of external magnetic field to a cobalt nanoparticle-based ferrofluid. Unique spectral properties of photonic hyper-crystals lead to extreme sensitivity of the material to monolayer coatings of cobalt nanoparticles, which should find numerous applications in biological and chemical sensing. 1This work was supported in part by NSF grant DMR-1104676, NSF Center for Photonic and Multiscale Nanomaterials, ARO MURI and Gordon and Berry Moore Foundation. Igor Smolyaninov University of Maryland Date submitted: 11 Nov 2014 Electronic form version 1.4