Photoexcitation-induced magnetism in arrays of semiconductor nanoparticles with a strong excitonic oscillator strength

A type of magnetic metamaterial which exhibits strong magnetic activity within and below the optical region is presented. The metamaterial consists of semiconductor nanoparticles such as CuCl or Cu2O particles. The magnetic activity is attributed to the strong oscillator strength stemming from the exciton absorption line. The magnetic permeability of the proposed metamaterial is calculated from the extended Maxwell-Garnett theory, and its validity is compared against ab initio layer multiple-scattering calculations. The proposed structure is a low-loss, subwavelength, isotropic magnetic metamaterial, and its response is robust against stacking and point disorder.