Abstract
The possibility of making an optically large (many wavelengths in diameter) object appear invisible has been a subject of many recent studies. Exact invisibility scenarios for large (relative to the wavelength) objects involve (meta)materials with superluminal phase velocity [refractive index (RI) less than unity] and/or magnetic response. We introduce a new approximation applicable to certain device geometries in the eikonal limit: piecewise-uniform scaling of the RI. This transformation preserves the ray trajectories but leads to a uniform phase delay. We show how to take advantage of phase delays to achieve a limited (directional and wavelength-dependent) form of invisibility that does not require loss-ridden (meta)materials with superluminal phase velocities.
© 2012 Optical Society of America
Full Article | PDF ArticleMore Like This
Yaroslav Urzhumov, Nathan Landy, Tom Driscoll, Dimitri Basov, and David R. Smith
Opt. Lett. 38(10) 1606-1608 (2013)
Jad C. Halimeh and Martin Wegener
Opt. Express 20(27) 28330-28340 (2012)
Xuefeng Zhu, Liang Feng, Peng Zhang, Xiaobo Yin, and Xiang Zhang
Opt. Lett. 38(15) 2821-2824 (2013)