Impedance Model of Cylindrical Nanowires for Metamaterial Applications

Abstract

In metamaterials, metallic nanowires are used for creating artificial materials to functionalize them for various nanophotonics applications. Strong polarization-dependent response coupled with complex dielectric function at optical frequencies gives additional degrees of freedom to achieve scattering, absorption, and other benefits that go much beyond what is possible with conventional materials. In this paper, we propose an extended cylindrical wave impedance approach at optical frequencies to model the internal and external impedance of the metallic nanowire. Equivalent analytical expression for the scattering, extinction, and absorption cross-sectional area efficiencies are derived in terms of impedances. The motivation is to develop an all-mode solution ( TM n and TE n modes), by bringing the complex problem of plasmonic nanowire to linear system theory, where established methods can be applied to enable new applications. The equivalence of the impedance solution is compared with electromagnetic field solution and numerical full-wave field simulations. The proposed solution is accurate and may contribute to the rapid and efficient future designs for the metallic nanowire-based nanophotonic metamaterials.