Abstract

Subwavelength confinement and manipulation of light is of a great importance for imaging, sensing, highresolution lithography, all-optical signal processing, as well as photonic funnels and superlenses [1,2]. The diffraction limit, however, prevents such a confinement of optical radiation to the dimensions smaller than one half of the wavelength in the material. Conventional resolution-improvement techniques are based on high-index materials, and the further progress requires a design of artificial materials, such as metamaterials, with exotic (e.g. negative) refractive indices. Plasmonic metal-dielectric multilayered structures that operate as coupled subwavelength waveguides have been recently proposed for a variety of imaging systems and beam steering [3], At the same time, the absence of natural magnetism at optical frequencies also requires the fabrication of nanostructured metamaterials in order to reveal adequate dispersion properties for negative refraction.

© 2009 IEEE