Effective medium representation and complex modes in 3D periodic metamaterials made of cubic resonators with large permittivity at mid-infrared frequencies

• Review of techniques that lead to the effective medium representation of a three-dimensional (3D) periodic metamaterial.
• Use of the dual dipole approximation (DDA) to analyze the modes in the 3D lattice, with transverse polarization and complex wavenumber.
• Effective medium parameters derived by using complex modes.
• The DDA method involves the use of periodic dyadic Green's functions accelerated using the Ewald method.
• Generation of artificial magnetism at mid-infrared frequencies.

We review some of the techniques that lead to the effective medium representation of a three-dimensional (3D) periodic metamaterial. We consider a 3D lattice of lead telluride cubic resonators at mid-infrared (MIR) frequencies. Each cubic resonator is modeled with both an electric and a magnetic dipole, through a method called the dual dipole approximation. The electric and magnetic polarizabilities of a cubic resonator are computed via full-wave simulations by mapping the resonator's scattered field under electric/magnetic excitation only to the field radiated by an equivalent electric/magnetic dipole. We then analyze the allowed modes in the lattice, with transverse polarization and complex wavenumber, highlighting the attenuation that each mode experiences after one free space wavelength. We observe the presence of two modes with low attenuation constant, dominant in different frequency ranges, able to propagate inside the lattice: this allows the treatment of the metamaterial as a homogeneous material with effective parameters, evaluated by using various techniques. We then show that the metamaterial under analysis allows for the generation of artificial magnetism (i.e., relative effective permeability different than unity, including negative permeability with low losses) at MIR frequencies.