Magnetized Plasma for Reconfigurable Subdiffraction Imaging

Shuang Zhang, Yi Xiong, Guy Bartal, Xiaobo Yin, and Xiang Zhang

Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 243901 – Published 13 June 2011

Abstract

We show that magnetized plasma with appropriately designed parameters supports nearly diffractionless propagation of electromagnetic waves along the direction of the applied magnetic field, arising from their unbounded equifrequency contour in the magnetized plasma. Such a unique feature can be utilized to construct subdiffraction imaging devices, which is confirmed by detailed numerical investigations. Subdiffraction imaging devices based on magnetic plasma do not require microfabrication normally entailed by construction of metamaterials; more importantly, they can be dynamically reconfigured by tuning the applied magnetic field or the plasma density, and therefore they represent a facile and powerful route for imaging applications.

Received 10 March 2011

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.243901

Authors & Affiliations

Shuang Zhang^1,*, Yi Xiong¹, Guy Bartal¹, Xiaobo Yin^1,2, and Xiang Zhang^1,2,†

¹Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center, University of California, 5130 Etcheverry Hall, Berkeley, California 94720-1740, USA
²Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road Berkeley, California 94720, USA

^*Present address: School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, B15 2TT, United Kingdom.
^†To whom all correspondence should be addressed. xiang@berkeley.edu