By David Nugent
It’s a tenuous connection, I know, but I want to start this blog with a line from my favorite comedy writer:
“I was thrown out of college for cheating on the metaphysics exam: I looked into the soul of another boy” – Woody Allen.
With more US patent applications filed within the last year than in the previous five years, enigmatic metamaterial science justly deserves scholarly concentration.
For my money the most interesting metamaterial applications emerging from commercial laboratories at the moment are THz sources, EM boundary engineering, and millimeter wave components.
THz sources
Lured by the goal of an ideal THz source, academic and commercial researchers alike are investigating negative-index metamaterials (‘NIMs’) to generate and transmit electromagnetic radiation in the 0.1 to 10 THz range. For example, the use of alternately positive- and negative-index metamaterials in a Smith Purcell antenna to enhance the efficiency of THz radiation is a particularly interesting area of research. Joyously we have a full morning session (CTu THz Metamaterials) to discuss this and other exciting areas of academic and commercial science.
EM boundaries
Electromagnetic (‘EM’) surfaces represent boundaries that can be modeled to influence EM propagation in applications such as spatial filtering, surface wave suppression, surface radiation support and diffraction suppression. For example, low-index metamaterials can be used to form soft and/or hard EM boundaries to provide wider bandwidths than conventional large-scale period structures such as corrugated or strip-loaded dielectric liners. Those interested in this field will be spoilt for choice, but my pick would be the QELS Symposium on Nanophotonics and Metamaterials (QTuH).
Millimeter wave lenses
With millimeter wave (‘MMW’) transducers now being built into automotives for ranging-finding and collision avoidance systems, OEMs are examining the role of metamaterials in reducing the cost of MMW components such as lenses and antennas. The idea here is that since the properties of metamaterials arise from their structure rather than directly from their composition, this may provide route to low-cost manufacturing. Here the talk (QTuD4) by Vassili Fedotov (Univ. of Southampton) et al seems particularly relevant.
I now want to turn attention to the contentious (in some circles) issue of the presentation of technical papers at CLEO/QELS by commercial entities. By my reckoning, there is novel and deserving metamaterial research underway at corporations such as Rayspan Inc. (San Jose, USA). Yet scanning the congress proceedings I find no papers from this metamaterial specialist. Did they submit any papers? If not, why not? If yes, why were they not accepted? I’d love to know.
Anyway, must get back to scouring the voluminous CLEO agenda for more nuggets of metamaterial innovation. This reminds me of another eternal one-liner from Woody:
“I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia.”
I’ll say no more!
Dr David Nugent is Founder and CEO of Elucidare Limited, a boutique technology development and investment advisory business.
Posted: 7 May 2010 by
David Nugent
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