Final report for AOARD project FA23860914084: Fabrication of metamaterials by drawing techniques

We present the design of an invisible metamaterial fibre operating at optical frequencies, which could be fabricated by adapting existing fibre drawing techniques. The invisibility is realised by matching the refractive index of the metamaterial fibre with the surroundings. We present a general recipe for the fabrication of such fibres, and numerically characterise a specific example using hexagonally arranged silver nanowires in a silica background. We find that invisibility is highly sensitive to details of the metamaterial boundary, a problem that is likely to affect most invisibility and cloaking schemes. ©2010 Optical Society of America OCIS codes: (060.2400) Fiber properties; (160.3918) Metamaterials; (290.5893) Scattering, invisibility. References and links 1. J. Ward, “Towards invisible glass,” Vacuum 22(9), 369–375 (1972). 2. R. L. Fante, M. T. McCormack, T. D. Syst, and M. A. Wilmington, “Reflection properties of the Salisbury screen,” IEEE Trans. Antenn. 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