%0 Journal Article
%T Ferrell-Berreman modes in plasmonic epsilon-near-zero media
%A Ward D. Newman
%A Cristian L. Cortes
%A Jon Atkinson
%A Sandipan Pramanik
%A Raymond G. DeCorby
%A Zubin Jacob
%J Physics
%D 2015
%I arXiv
%X We observe unique absorption resonances in silver/silica multilayer-based epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) metamaterials that are related to radiative bulk plasmon-polariton states of thin-films originally studied by Ferrell (1958) and Berreman (1963). In the local effective medium, metamaterial descrip- tion, the unique effect of the excitation of these microscopic modes is counterintuitive and captured within the complex propagation constant, not the effective dielectric permittivities. Theoretical anal- ysis of the band structure for our metamaterials shows the existence of multiple Ferrell-Berreman branches with slow light characteristics. The demonstration that the propagation constant reveals subtle microscopic resonances can lead to the design of devices where Ferrell-Berreman modes can be exploited for practical applications ranging from plasmonic sensing to imaging and absorption enhancement.
%U http://arxiv.org/abs/1505.06180v1