In this seminar, I will tell about two media that have interested me recently: quantum plasma, and a “wire medium” metamaterial. What do these two rather different media have in common? They both have interesting, unusual properties, and in both media the spatial dispersion plays an important role.
Quantum plasma
A plasma is regarded as a quantum plasma when the quantum nature of its constituent particles has an appreciable effect on its collective behaviour. Examples of quantum plasmas are the gas of charge carriers in solids (free electrons in metals, electrons and holes in semiconductors), dense matter in the “fast ignition” scenario of inertially confined fusion, the matter in the cores of some dense astrophysical objects.
In this talk, I will discuss some of the interesting features of the well-known “textbook” plasma phenomena that appear in quantum plasmas, as compared to classical plasmas. In particular, I will consider such “elementary” phenomena as plasma shielding of charges, volume and surface wave dispersion and attenuation (including Landau damping), and show how they change, often qualitatively, in quantum plasmas, as compared to these phenomena in classical plasmas.
Guided modes of a wire medium slab
In the second part of the talk, I will tell about a work we recently did jointly with colleagues from the “Metamaterials” lab at NRU ITMO, on guided modes of a wire medium slab. I will briefly show a rather general method for obtaining such modes that can potentially be applied for other, more complex geometries. Then I will show the dispersion structure of the obtained modes, which exhibits strong coupling between slow and fast modes of the same parity, which is only possible due to the nonlocality (spatial dispersion) of the wire medium.
Quantum plasma
A plasma is regarded as a quantum plasma when the quantum nature of its constituent particles has an appreciable effect on its collective behaviour. Examples of quantum plasmas are the gas of charge carriers in solids (free electrons in metals, electrons and holes in semiconductors), dense matter in the “fast ignition” scenario of inertially confined fusion, the matter in the cores of some dense astrophysical objects.
In this talk, I will discuss some of the interesting features of the well-known “textbook” plasma phenomena that appear in quantum plasmas, as compared to classical plasmas. In particular, I will consider such “elementary” phenomena as plasma shielding of charges, volume and surface wave dispersion and attenuation (including Landau damping), and show how they change, often qualitatively, in quantum plasmas, as compared to these phenomena in classical plasmas.
Guided modes of a wire medium slab
In the second part of the talk, I will tell about a work we recently did jointly with colleagues from the “Metamaterials” lab at NRU ITMO, on guided modes of a wire medium slab. I will briefly show a rather general method for obtaining such modes that can potentially be applied for other, more complex geometries. Then I will show the dispersion structure of the obtained modes, which exhibits strong coupling between slow and fast modes of the same parity, which is only possible due to the nonlocality (spatial dispersion) of the wire medium.