Mixed-Signal, RF & Microwave Seminar

Metamaterials offer unprecedented opportunities to tailor and enhance the interaction of waves with materials. In this talk, I discuss our recent research activity in electromagnetics, nano-optics and acoustics, showing how suitably tailored meta-atoms and suitable arrangements of them open exciting venues to manipulate and control waves in unprecedented ways. In particular, I will focus on our recent work in the area of non-reciprocal devices, from acoustics to nanophotonics, with the overall goal of largely breaking Lorentz reciprocity and realize isolation in practical devices without using magnetic bias. Our approaches are based on using suitably tailored mechanical motion, spatio-temporal modulation, and/or large nonlinearities in coupled resonator systems, and have enabled magnetic-free circulators and isolators for sound, microwaves, THz and optical frequencies, non-reciprocal antennas, emitters and absorbers breaking Kirchhoff's law, self-induced isolation for high-intensities triggered by nonlinearities, and a new generation of topological insulators for light and sound. In the talk, I will also discuss the impact of these concepts from basic science to practical technology.