APS Practice Talks

APS Practice Talks: (1) Transparent conductive BaCuTeF thin films by pulsed laser deposition, (2) Thin film preparation of the p-type transparent semiconductor Cu3TaS4, (3) Coupling to nanoscale negative-refraction planar waveguides, (4) Effective Non-Localities of Nano-Layered Meta-Materials

 (1) Transparent p-type carrier conductive BaCuTeF thin films are reported. Undoped BaCuTeF films obtained in-situ by pulsed laser deposition in UHV exhibit maximum conductivities of 50-55 S/cm on fused silica substrates. The polycrystalline films deposited at various temperatures up to 600°C are single phase with optical band gap of about 3 eV and 70% average transparency in the visible and near-IR optical ranges. BaCuTeF films deposited on single crystal MgO substrates are highly oriented.

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(3) Negative index non-magnetic strongly anisotropic waveguides have been shown to provide efficient beam steering and manipulation in nanoscale areas with applications that include sub-diffraction planar lens imaging and photonic funnels. In this work we study the coupling to and from sub-wavelength planar waveguides of different sizes and compare the transmission through a negative-index structure to the Bethe prediction for positive index materials. We simulate EM wave propagation and imaging in arbitrary waveguide configurations with a focus on designing and optimizing planar-waveguide based beam-steering photonic devices. (4) Multi-layered nano-composites have been suggested for negative index of refraction systems, photonic funnels, super- and hyper-lenses, as well as other nanophotonic structures. We analyze the electromagnetic modes in such systems and show that they are not described by conventional effective-medium theories. We demonstrate the response of a majority of realistic layered structures is strongly affected by effective non-localities. We develop the analytical description of the relevant phenomena and confirm our results with rigorous numerical solutions of the Maxwell equations. Finally, we demonstrate that multi-layered plasmonic nanostructures support high-index volume modes confined to deep subwavelength areas by using the formalism we have developed.