Electrodynamical investigation of functional metamaterials

Overview

Key Features

Metamaterials open wide avenues for applications including manipulation of electromagnetic waves by blocking, absorbing, enhancing, or bending waves. Over the past 20 years, techniques for producing nanostructures have matured, resulting in a wide range of ground-breaking solutions that can control light and heat on very small scales. Some of the areas of advancement that have contributed to these techniques are photonic crystals, nanolithography, plasmonic phenomena, and nanoparticle manipulation. From these advances, a new branch of novel material science has emerged—metamaterials. Metamaterials have, in the last few decades, inspired scientists and engineers to think about waves beyond traditional constraints imposed by materials in which they propagate, conceiving new functionalities, such as subwavelength imaging, invisibility cloaking, and broadband ultraslow light. 

While mainly for ease of fabrication, many of the metamaterials concepts have initially been demonstrated at longer wavelengths and for microwaves, metamaterials have subsequently moved to photonic frequencies and the nanoscale. At the same time, metamaterials are recently embedding new quantum materials such as graphene, dielectric nanostructures and, as metasurfaces, surface geometries and surface waves, while also embracing new functionalities such as nonlinearity, quantum gain, and strong light-matter coupling. 

The selected candidate of the Electrodynamical investigation of functional metamaterials programme from Vilnius Gediminas Technical University will work on the PhD thesis under the supervision of Prof. dr. Tatjana Gric. The successful applicant will have to attend scientific conferences, meetings and internships in the other universities.