Researchers Create an Electromagnetic 'Black Hole' the Size of a Salad Plate Oct 21, 2009
Unlike ordinary magnifying glasses, lenses made from metamaterials can have a negative index of refraction, meaning that refracted light bends to the same side of the "normal," the imaginary line perpendicular to the surface of the lens, as does the incident light ... The laboratory black hole is based on a similar approach establishing a graded index of refraction to bend electromagnetic radiation inward to the cylinder's core. (Scientific American)
Nanoscale Lasers May Open Door To Faster Computers, More Reliable Internet Access Aug 6, 2009
In an optically denser medium such as a semiconductor, this limit is reduced by a factor of the index of refraction (expressed mathematically as ~3. 0) of a semiconductor in this case to about 250 nanometers. (Science Daily)
Healing wounds with lasers, vehicles that drive themselves, other cutting-edge optics May 27, 2009
He and his colleagues argue that a very slight thermally-induced movement of a mirror's surface owing to thermal noise is accompanied by associated changes in other physical parameters, such as the index of refraction of the mirror. These correlated changes can be exploited to compensate, in a coordinated way, the deleterious effects of the mirror surface's motion. (EurekAlert!)
Invisibility cloaks spread out May 23, 2009
Other invisibility cloaks use optical diffraction gratings that tune into specific wavelengths with a negative index of refraction that allows the cloak to provide invisibility, but only at those wavelengths ... Metamaterials could enable super lenses by varying their index of refraction below one, according to Shalaev ... Natural materials have an index of refraction of greater than one. (EETimes)
OFC/NFOEC features breakthroughs in next-generation ethernet, metamaterials, networks Mar 18, 2009
They are nanostructured materials made of tiny metallic rings, rods, or strips arranged in such a way as to produce a negative index of refraction, or a situation unique to metamaterials when light is deflected away from an imaginary line passing perpendicularly between air and the material. This property in turn is expected to lead to novel optical devices, such as flat-panel lenses and hyperlenses. (EurekAlert!)
Laser-sculpted Optical Devices For Future Giant Telescopes Feb 10, 2009
Typically, the pulses affect the index of refraction, which describes the speed of light through the material. By changing the index of refraction along a continuous line, researchers have created hair-thin optical waveguides inside a material. (Science Daily)
