University of Toronto study charts new realm of physics

University of Toronto study charts new realm of physics The team works in the rapidly emerging field of metamaterials - artificially created substances with properties not found in nature. Under normal electromagnetic conditions, light passing through a flat lens will diverge; light passing through a lens made of metamaterials, however, will bend the "wrong" way and become focused.

Their study reveals that when evanescent waves - weak but important waves that lose strength quickly after leaving their source - are directed through their flat metamaterial lens, these waves are amplified. At the same time, the lens corrects the phase of the waves by focusing the diverging waves into a beam. Metamaterial lenses, when constructed at optical frequencies, could be used to engineer the next generation of electronic devices at the nanometre scale, says Eleftheriades.