Metamaterials open unparalleled opportunities for "engineering" previously inaccessible values of refractive indices from positive to near-zero and even negative values, as well as new avenues for light manipulation. While enormous progress has been made in the field of linear optics of uniform metamaterials, including a negative index of refraction, magnetism in optics, and subwavelength focusing, light interactions with graded-index and nonlinear metamaterials is a fascinating, relatively new, and highly unexplored branch of metamaterials research. In this talk, I will discuss new phenomena that we predicted in so-called "transition metamaterials", or materials with the refractive index gradually changing from positive to negative values, and in nonlinear guided-wave metamaterial structures.

Prof. Litchinitser received her B.S. and M.S. in Physics from Moscow State University. She then completed her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1997. Since 2011, she has been an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York. Her main research interests are nonlinear optics, plasmonics, and metamaterials. Her publications include five book chapters, over 40 papers in referred journals, and 28 invited talks and seminars. Prof. Litchinitser is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Natalia Litchinitser (2010), "Photonic Metamaterials: From Linear to Nonlinear Optics," https://nanohub.org/resources/10185.

  BibTex | EndNote

1. metamaterials
2. nanophotonics
3. negative index refraction
4. nonlinear optics
5. photonics