Speaker: William Schaich, Indiana University

Title:   On the appearance of negative refraction

Abstract:  There has been a recent flood of papers about the possibility of negative refraction. On the experimental side, it has now become clear that metamaterials can indeed be assembled that exhibit this behavior. On the theoretical side, which will be our focus, one continues to discuss the derivation, interpretation, and appearance of the phenomenon. We will examine what happens when linear combinations of 1,2,3, or many plane waves coming from vacuum encounter a flat interface with a material that has a negative index of refraction. With modest calculations one can follow the evolution in space and time of the reflection/refraction process. This will be illustrated via both still frames and animated movies.

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