Novel frequency selective surfaces and photonic cavities comprised of reconfigurable plasma elements
Abstract
The ability to tune the light-matter interaction with photonic crystals has generated much excitement in recent years. Frequency selective surfaces, which are essentially two-dimensional photonic crystals, have found many uses over the past thirty years in military communications and stealth applications but are generally less well known to the physics community. In this talk we present the results of a joint experimental/theoretical investigation focusing on the development and characterization of dynamically tunable photonic structures through the use of plasma elements. Fluorescent lighting tubes were run at high current to produce sufficiently dense plasma so as to effectively scatter microwave energy. Arrays of such tubes were constructed to mimic the behavior of traditional frequency selective surfaces. By surrounding an omni-directional antenna with plasma tubes, an efficient ``plasma window" (photonic cavity) is obtained. A simple model of the dielectric properties of the plasma vs. applied voltage was constructed and used as input to electromagnetic simulations. Detailed comparison between theory and experiment will be presented.
- Publication:
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APS March Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- March 2004
- Bibcode:
- 2004APS..MARU36003R