Switching nonlinearity in a superconductor-enhanced metamaterial
Journal article, 2012

We demonstrate a nonlinear metamaterial that can be switched between low and high transmission by controlling the power level of the incident beam. The origin of this nonlinear response is the superconducting Nb thin film employed in the metamaterial structure. We show that with moderate RF power of about 22 dBm it is possible to quench the superconducting state as a result of extremely strong current densities at the corners of the metamaterial's split-ring resonators. We measure a transmission contrast of 10 dB and a change in group delay of 70 ns between the low and high power states.

superconductor

nonlinearity

metamaterials

nonlinear metamaterial

Author

Cihan Kurter

University of Maryland

Philippe Tassin

Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB)

Iowa State University

Alexander P. Zhuravel

National Academy of Sciences in Ukraine

Lei Zhang

Iowa State University

Thomas Koschny

Iowa State University

Alexey V. Ustinov

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)

Costas M. Soukoulis

Institute of Electronic Structure and Lasers (IESL)

Iowa State University

Steven M. Anlage

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)

University of Maryland

Applied Physics Letters

0003-6951 (ISSN) 1077-3118 (eISSN)

Vol. 100 12 121906-

Areas of Advance

Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (SO 2010-2017, EI 2018-)

Subject Categories

Atom and Molecular Physics and Optics

Other Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering

Condensed Matter Physics

DOI

10.1063/1.3696297

More information

Latest update

2/7/2022 3