Photonic meta-crystals

Abstract

Photonic crystals (PCs) and metamaterials are periodic artificial structures with different scales that modulate light–matter interactions. Considering their complementary advantages, the concept of photonic meta-crystals is proposed. In these hybrid structures, such as hypercrystals (composed of hyperbolic metamaterials and PCs), the photonic band gap provided by PCs can be blue-shifted with more degrees of freedom, and the weak coupling of hyperbolic metamaterials to the environment can be enhanced. This review introduces photonic meta-crystals in sequence, based on the classification of electromagnetic parameters in metamaterials. Recent advances in photonic meta-crystals are also presented in the context of topological semimetals.

Keywords

Metamaterials / effective medium theory / photonic crystals / light-matter interactions / microstructures

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