2.S987: Metamaterials: Fundamentals, Design & Applications

Spring | Graduate/Undergraduate | 12 Units | Prereq: 18.02, 8.02 or 6.013, and 18.03 | Recommended: 2.71/2.710, 2.096J, 2.097J 

Photonic crystals, metamaterials, metasurfaces, and other types of artificial composite media can be engineered to display physical properties mimicking and often surpassing those available in natural materials. The concept of a metamaterial has been originally proposed to tailor electromagnetic and optical response of structures, and has since been extended to tailor elastic, acoustic, and thermal properties. The students will learn what new optical and thermal properties can be engineered in complex media structured on the sub-wavelength scale under different global symmetry conditions. They will also learn to connect the local field features to the global field distributions, engineer energy powerflow patterns, and manipulate the photonic density of states through bandstructure engineering.