Negative Refraction at Optical Frequencies in Nonmagnetic Two-Component Molecular Media

2004/08/23 by Yifan Chen, Yi-Fan Chen, Peer Fischer +1 · 4 citations
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Liquid Crystal Research Advancements #Metamaterials and Metasurfaces Applications #Photonic Crystals and Applications #physics.optics

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.95.067402

published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 067402 (2005) · 4.1 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Physical Review Letters

arxiv created 2004/08/23 · openalex publication_date 2005/08/01 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

There is significant motivation to develop media with negative refractive indices at optical frequencies, but efforts in this direction are hampered by the weakness of the magnetic response at such frequencies. We show theoretically that a nonmagnetic medium with two atomic or molecular constituents can exhibit a negative refractive index. A negative index is possible even when the real parts of both the permittivity and permeability are positive. This surprising result provides a route to isotropic negative-index media at optical frequencies.

Citations

• THE ELECTRODYNAMICS OF SUBSTANCES WITH SIMULTANEOUSLY NEGATIVE VALUES OF ε AND μ

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• On the refractive index for a nonmagnetic two-component medium: Resolution of a controversy
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