I have been working on the topic of polaritonic metamaterials mainly in the TeraHertz regime, where there is a wide scope of possible applications, ranging from tissue imaging, telecommunications, security and sensing, and even astronomy.
A polaritonic material is a polar crystal where an incident electromagnetic wave can excite lattice vibrations (phononic modes) supported in the crystal.
Since the recent availability of THz sources, as the emerging technology of Quantum Cascade Lasers, the possibilities of exploring and exploiting the THz regime becomes more and more appealing. Since the customary optical devices are practically transparent in THz, there is a need to develop new materials to built optical devices in the range of THz, such as lenses, beam splitters, polarizers, filters, collimators, etc. At this respect, THz metamaterials, along with their extraordinary electromagnetic properties (like negative refractive index, backward propagation, etc.) can be a good candidate to manipulate THz beams.
We have reported both theoretical and simulation results, and the comparison with experimental results at THz regime of the Electromagnetic Spectrum, in the journal of Optics Express as well as presented in conferences such as TaCoNa-Photonics.
Currently, I am collaborating with Prof. Felipe Pérez-Rodríguez in the study of metallo-polaritonic metamaterials, using novel theoretical technique based on non-local effective electromagnetic response functions to characterize the metamaterial.
In this topic, Eder Hazael Aguilar Gómez, my former undergraduate student, performed his thesis studying two dimensional layer system, made of metallic and polaritonic slabs.
