• Zhang, Xinghang
• Lu, Juanjuan
• Pachaury, Yash
• Siddiqui, Aleem
• Paldi, Robynne L.
• Bhatt, Nirali A.
• El-Azab, Anter
• He, Zihao
• Wang, Haiyan

Abstract

<jats:p>Hyperbolic metamaterials are a class of materials exhibiting anisotropic dielectric function owing to the morphology of the nanostructures. In these structures, one direction behaves as a metal, and the orthogonal direction behaves as a dielectric material. Applications include subdiffraction imaging and hyperlenses. However, key limiting factors include energy losses of noble metals and challenging fabrication methods. In this work, self-assembled plasmonic metamaterials consisting of anisotropic nanoalloy pillars embedded into the ZnO matrix are developed using a seed-layer approach. Alloys of AuxAl1−x or AuxCu1−x are explored due to their lower losses and higher stability. Optical and microstructural properties were explored. The ZnO-AuxCu1−x system demonstrated excellent epitaxial quality and optical properties compared with the ZnO-AuxAl1−x system. Both nanocomposite systems demonstrate plasmonic resonance, hyperbolic dispersion, low losses, and epsilon-near-zero permittivity, making them promising candidates towards direct photonic integration.</jats:p>

Topics

• nanocomposite
• dispersion
• anisotropic
• metamaterial
• aligned