Date of Award

Spring 5-2019

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Optical Engineering

Department

Department of Physics and Optical Engineering

First Advisor

Alisafaee, Hossein

Second Advisor

Siahmakoun, Azad

Third Advisor

Wheeler, Edward

Abstract

Hyperbolic metamaterials (HMMs) show extreme anisotropy, acting as metals and dielectrics along orthogonal directions. They are designed using the effective medium theory (EMT) and can be fabricated using standard semiconductor processing techniques. Current techniques used to characterize the optical behavior of HMMs have a high complexity or are unable to robustly determine the complex permittivity tensor. We describe the details of a procedure to obtain a very low mean-squared-error (MSE) for extraction of permittivity from hyperbolic metamaterials using spectroscopic ellipsometry. We have verified our procedure by fabricating three different samples of various materials and fill factors designed to have a response in the visible spectrum with an epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) region near the Helium-Neon (He-Ne) wavelength of 633 nm. The MSE obtained in each case has been less than 1.00. Our procedure eliminates the need for complicated ellipsometric measurements and modeling techniques, as well as the need for the addition of extra parts such as prisms. Therefore, the process can be easily adopted.

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