Coupling Effects in Optical Metamaterials

Metamaterials have become one of the hottest fields of photonics since the pioneering work of John Pendry on negative refractive index, invisibility cloaking, and perfect lensing. Three-dimensional metamaterials are required for practical applications. In these materials, coupling effects between individual constituents play a dominant role for the optical and electronic properties. Metamaterials can show both electric and magnetic responses at optical frequencies. Thus, electric as well as magnetic dipolar and higher-order multipolar coupling is the essential mechanism. Depending on the structural composition, both longitudinal and transverse coupling occur. The intricate interplay between different coupling effects in a plasmon hybridization picture provides a useful tool to intuitively understand the evolution from molecule-like states to solid-state-like bands.