Transformation optics

Computing power that became available in the late 1990s enables prescribed quantitative values for the permittivity and permeability, the constitutive parameters, which produce localized spatial variations.

The mathematics underpinning transformation optics is similar to the equations that describe how gravity warps space and time, in general relativity.

Twisting the Cartesian mesh, in essence, transforms the coordinates of the electromagnetic fields, which in turn conceal a given object.

[1][2][6][7] Transformation optics can go beyond cloaking (mimic celestial mechanics) because its control of the trajectory and path of light is highly effective.

Transformation optics is the foundation for exploring a diverse set of theoretical, numerical, and experimental developments, involving the perspectives of the physics and engineering communities.

The multi-disciplinary perspectives for inquiry and designing of materials develop understanding of their behaviors, properties, and potential applications for this field.

This research creates a link between the newly emerging field of artificial optical metamaterials to that of celestial mechanics, thus opening a new possibility to investigate astronomical phenomena in a laboratory setting.

The recently introduced, new class, of specially designed optical media can mimic the periodic, quasi-periodic and chaotic motions observed in celestial objects that have been subjected to gravitational fields.

As such, CIPTs can control, slow and trap light in a manner similar to celestial phenomena such as black holes, strange attractors, and gravitational lenses.

[8][9] A composite of air and the dielectric Gallium Indium Arsenide Phosphide (GaInAsP), operated in the infrared spectral range and featured a high refractive index with low absorptions.

[8][11] This opens an avenue to investigate light phenomena that imitates orbital motion, strange attractors and chaos in a controlled laboratory environment by merging the study of optical metamaterials with classical celestial mechanics.

[9] If a metamaterial could be produced that did not have high intrinsic loss and a narrow frequency range of operation then it could be employed as a type of media to simulate light motion in a curved spacetime vacuum.

The materials could facilitate periodic, quasi-periodic and chaotic light motion inherent to celestial objects subjected to complex gravitational fields.

However, owing to the large spatial distances between the celestial bodies, and the long periods involved in the study of their dynamics, the direct observation of chaotic planetary motion has been a challenge.

[8][11] The study also points toward the design of novel optical cavities and photon traps for application in microscopic devices and lasers systems.

In July 2009 a metamaterial structure forming an effective black hole was theorized, and numerical simulations showed a highly efficient light absorption.

Since the design space of conventional optics is limited to a combination of refractive index and surface structure, correcting for aberrations (for example through the use of achromatic or diffractive optics) leads to large, heavy, complex designs, and/or greater losses, lower image quality, and manufacturing difficulties.

[17] Recent steps forward in material science have led to at least one method for developing large (>10 mm) GRIN lenses with 3-dimensional gradient indexes.

A possible future capability could be to further advance lens design methods and tools, which are coupled to enlarged fabrication processes.

The versatile properties of metamaterials can be tailored to fit almost any practical need, and transformation optics shows that space for light can be bent in almost any arbitrary way.

[18] For example, determining whether a cloud in the distance is harmless or an aerosol of enemy chemical or biological warfare is very difficult to assess quickly.

Longer-term views include the possibility for cloaking materials, which would provide "invisibility" by redirecting light around a cylindrical shape.