Zero permeability and zero permittivity band gaps in 1D metamaterial photonic crystals

DEPINE, RICARDO; MARTINEZ RICCI, MARIA LUZ; MONSORIU, JUAN; SILVESTRE, ENRIQUE; ANDRÉS, PEDRO

PHYSICS LETTERS A

Elsevier

Año: 2007 vol. 364 p. 352 - 355

0375-9601

We consider layered heterostructures combining ordinary positive index materials and dispersive metamaterials. We show that these structures can exhibit a new type of photonic gap around frequencies where either the magnetic permeability μ or the electric permittivity  of the metamaterial is zero. Although the interface of a semi-infinite medium with zero refractive index (a condition attained either when μ = 0 or when  = 0) is known to give full reflectivity for all incident polarizations, here we show that a gap corresponding to μ = 0 occurs only for TE polarized waves, whereas a gap corresponding to  = 0 occurs only for TM polarized waves. These band gaps are scale-length invariant and very robust against disorder, although they may disappear for the particular case of propagation along the stratification direction.