Negative index metamaterials are demonstrated based on metal-dielectric nanocomposites prepared using a versatile bottom-up nanofabrication approach. The method involves the incorporation of vertically aligned metal nanowires such as Au and Ag inside dielectric aluminum oxide nanotemplates. Optical absorbance measurements show resonance peaks corresponding to the transverse and longitudinal sur...

We study one- and two-dimensional transmission of electromagnetic waves through a finite slab of a dielectric material with negative refraction. In the case when the dielectric slab possesses an intensitydependent nonlinear response, we observe the nonlinearity-induced wave transmission through an opaque slab accompanied by the generation of spatiotemporal solitons. We solve this problem numeri...

We show that light guided in a planar dielectric slab geometry incorporating a biaxial medium has lossless modes with group and phase velocities in opposite directions. Particles in a vacuum gap inserted into the structure experience negative radiation pressure: the particles are pulled by light rather than pushed by it. This effectively one-dimensional dielectric structure represents a new geo...

The potential of random metal-dielectric nanocomposites as constituent elements of metamaterial structures is explored. Classical effective medium theories indicate that these composites can provide a tunable negative dielectric function with small absorption losses. However, the tuning potential of real random composites is significantly lower than the one predicted by classical theories, due ...

For single homogeneous lossy dielectric Rayleigh particles, the manner in which the particle shape affects the absorption and scattering is examined by computing the polarizability tensor elements using a general purpose program valid for any rotationally symmetric body. The results for a number of generic shapes are compared with those for the corresponding spheroids. When the dielectric const...

Measurements of the temperature and frequency dependence of dielectric constants have been performed for five homologues in the range 100 Hz 10 MHz. These substances exhibit a negative anisotropy of the dielectric constants and two relaxation regions (rotation of the molecules around the short resp. long axis) in the investigated frequency range. Even in the crystalline state dipolar reorientat...

We consider meta materials made from a two-dimensional dielectric rod-type photonic crystal. The magnetic response is studied within the recently developed homogenization theory and we in particular study the effects of topology and inhomogeneous broadening. While topology itself mainly affects the Mie resonance frequency we find that the dispersion in the topological radius R of the dielectric...