A high refractive index metamaterial at visible frequencies formed by stacked cut-wire plasmonic structures

A type of metamaterial composing of stacked cut-wire plasmonic structures has been designed, fabricated, and characterized. The excitation of electric resonance caused by the surface plasmons effect dominates the electric field states, so that the effective refractive index can behave as a dramatic increase at visible frequencies, which is intimately associated with the resonance strength and can be modulated by reasonably changing the structure geometries. The phenomenon has been demonstrated with the measured transmittances being in agreement with simulation results. And the effective parameters judged by Kramers-Kronig relations have been uniquely retrieved from the simulated transmission and reflection data. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3453477]