Asymmetric Metal-dielectric Meta-cylinders and their Potential Applications from Engineering Scattering Patterns to Spatial Optical Signal Processing

Abstract

We propose a novel type of bi-anisotropic hybrid metal-dielectric structure comprising dielectric and metallic cylindrical wedges wherein the composite meta-cylinder enables advanced control of electric, magnetic and magnetoelectric resonances. We establish a theoretical framework in which the electromagnetic response of this meta-atom is described through the electric and magneticmultipole moments. The complete dynamic polarizability tensor, expressed in a compact form, is derived as a function of the Mie scattering coefficients. Flexibility in the design makes the proposed meta-cylinder a viable candidate for various applications in the microscopic (single meta-atom) and macroscopic (metasurface) levels. We show that the highly versatile bi-anisotropic meta-atom is amenable to being designed for the desired electromagnetic response, such as electric dipole-free and zero/near-zero (backward and forward) scattering at the microscopic level. In addition, we show that the azimuthal asymmetry gives rise to normal polarizability components which are vital elements in synthesizing asymmetric Optical Transfer Function (OTF) at the macroscopic level.We conduct a precise inspection, from the microscopic to the macroscopic level, of the metasurface synthesis for emphasizing on the role of normal polarizability components for spatial optical signal processing. It is shown that this simple two-dimensional asymmetric meta-atom can perform first-order differentiation and edge detection at normal illumination.The results reported herein contribute toward improving the physical understanding of wave interaction with artificial materials composed of asymmetric elongated metal-dielectric inclusions and open the potential of its application in spatial signal and image processing.