Composite material with controllable resonant cells
AssigneeHewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
InventorsPhilip J Kuekes, Shih-Yuan Wang, Raymond G Beausoleil, Alexandre M. Bratkovski, Wei Wu, M. Saif Islam
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Abstract
An apparatus for controlling propagation of incident electromagnetic radiation is described, comprising a composite material having electromagnetically reactive cells of small dimension relative to a wavelength of the incident electromagnetic radiation. At least one of a capacitive and inductive property of at least one of the electromagnetically reactive cells is temporally controllable to allow temporal control of an associated effective refractive index encountered by the incident electromagnetic radiation while propagating through the composite material.
Claims38
An apparatus for controlling propagation of incident electromagnetic radiation, comprising a composite material having electromagnetically reactive cells of small dimension relative to a wavelength of the incident electromagnetic radiation, wherein at least one of a capacitive and inductive property of at least one of said electromagnetically reactive cells is temporally controllable to allow temporal control of an associated effective refractive index encountered by the incident electromagnetic radiation while propagating through said composite material, each of said electromagnetically reactive cells comprising at least one electrical conductor and a substrate, said temporal control comprising controlling a carrier population within said substrate, said substrate comprising a semiconductor material having a bandgap energy, said wavelength of said incident electromagnetic radiation corresponding to a first frequency below a bandgap radiation frequency corresponding to said bandgap energy, said carrier population being controlled by introducing control radiation into said electromagnetically reactive cells at a second frequency at or above said bandgap radiation frequency, said electromagnetically reactive cells forming a surface receiving the incident electromagnetic radiation, further comprising a modulation input device transferring said control radiation onto said surface according to a modulation intensity pattern, said apparatus spatially modulating phase information in said incident electromagnetic radiation according to said modulation intensity pattern.
A method for controlling propagation of incident electromagnetic radiation, comprising:
- placing a composite material in the path of the incident electromagnetic radiation, the composite material comprising resonant cells of small dimension relative to a wavelength of the incident electromagnetic radiation;
- and
- temporally controlling at least one of a capacitive and inductive property of at least one of said resonant cells to temporally control an associated effective refractive index encountered by the incident electromagnetic radiation while propagating through the composite material, each of said resonant cells comprising at least one electrical conductor and a substrate, said temporally controlling comprising controlling a carrier population within said substrate, said substrate comprising a semiconductor material having a bandgap energy, said wavelength of said incident electromagnetic radiation corresponding to a first frequency below a bandgap radiation frequency corresponding to said bandgap energy, said controlling the carrier population comprising introducing control radiation into said resonant cells at a second frequency at or above said bandgap radiation frequency, said resonant cells forming a surface receiving the incident electromagnetic radiation, further comprising transferring said control radiation onto said surface according to a modulation intensity pattern, said resonant cells spatially modulating phase information in said incident electromagnetic radiation according to said modulation intensity pattern.
An apparatus, comprising:
- a composite material comprising electromagnetically reactive cells;
- means for applying incident radiation upon a surface of said composite material for propagation therethrough, said incident radiation having a wavelength substantially larger than a size of each of said electromagnetically reactive cells;
- and
- means for temporally controlling at least one of a capacitive and inductive property of at least one of said electromagnetically reactive cells to facilitate temporal control of an associated effective refractive index encountered by the incident radiation while propagating through said composite material, each of said electromagnetically reactive cells comprising at least one electrical conductor and a substrate, said means for temporally controlling modulating a carrier population within said substrate, said substrate comprising a semiconductor material having a bandgap energy, said wavelength of said incident electromagnetic corresponding to a first frequency below a bandgap radiation frequency corresponding to said bandgap energy, said carrier population being modulated by introduction of control radiation into said electromagnetically reactive cells at a second frequency at or above said bandgap radiation frequency the apparatus further comprising means for receiving and applying said control radiation onto said surface according to a modulation intensity pattern, said apparatus spatially modulating phase information in said incident electromagnetic radiation according to said modulation intensity pattern.
An apparatus for controlling propagation of incident electromagnetic radiation, comprising a composite material having electromagnetically reactive cells of small dimension relative to a wavelength of the incident electromagnetic radiation, each electromagnetically reactive cell comprising at least one length of conductor disposed along a corresponding length of a substrate, wherein at least one of a capacitive and inductive property of at least one of said electromagnetically reactive cells is temporally controllable by temporal control of a carrier population within said substrate along said corresponding length to allow temporal control of an associated effective refractive index encountered by the incident electromagnetic radiation while propagating through said composite material.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.