Optical and magneto-optical properties of plasma-magnetic metamaterials

Abstract

We investigate the optical and magneto-optical properties of a tunable left-handed material (LHM) consisting of an array of plasma and ferrite layers. It has been shown that the effective refraction index of a homogeneous composite in certain frequencies is negative. It can also be seen that the magnitude of extremum of the negative effective refraction index changes with frequency, external magnetic field and the electron density of plasma layer. In addition, a theoretical calculation of the faraday optical rotation effect of the proposed metamaterial is presented. From the obtained results, we find that there is a large faraday rotation angle in the frequency range where the system shows the left-handed property. Our outcomes demonstrate the potential applications of the device for tunable perfect lenses and active magneto-optic in micro-wave devices.