New Publication: Investigation of the coupling between tunable split-ring resonator

Congratulations to  XM² PGR Milo Baraclough (3rd year) who published his first paper ‘Investigation of the coupling between tunable split-ring resonators‘ in Physical Review B. This paper examines how the coupling between a passive and an active Split ring resonator changes as the active ring is tuned through the frequency of the passive ring: https://bit.ly/2JeXYbC.

Abstract

Passive resonant metamaterials are limited by the narrow-band nature of the resonances they support. Here we show that by incorporating an active component into the structure of the commonly used split-ring resonator it is possible to tune the resonance frequency of this type of metamaterial atom. We make use of this tunability to examine the interaction between two resonators, one passive and one active, as the resonance frequency of the active resonator is swept through that of the passive resonator. The resultant modes of this coupled system exhibit an anticrossing and, by changing the separation between, and relative orientation of, the split-ring resonators, we investigate how the magnetic and electric coupling terms change. We find that the relative orientation of the resonators significantly effects the strength of the coupling. Through both structural and active tuning we are able to alter the relative sizes and signs of the coupling terms. We hope that the nature of these changes will be of use to those designing large actively tunable metamaterial systems.

Figure 1: Schematic to illustrate the dipole moments associated with a split-ring resonator. The magnetic (blue) and electric (red) dipole moments of a split-ring resonator are shown, along with the direction of the instantaneous current around the ring (green). Note that the electric dipole moment is localized around the split region where there is maximal charge accumulation, while the magnetic dipole moment passes through the center of the ring due to the circulating currents.

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