Seminars & Colloquia

The Perfect Lens: Harnessing the Electromagnetic Near Field

John B. Pendry
The Blackett Lab
Imperial College, London
26 March 4:00 pm Higgins 310

Conventional lenses focus light with a resolution no better than the wavelength. Hence if we need a better DVD we need to move to a shorter wavelength because conventional lenses only act on the radiative field and the finer details of an object remain locked in the near field. In contrast a recent Physical Review Letter (vol 85, pp3966-9,2000) proposed a new lens which is able to manipulate the near field to form a perfect image, given perfect materials. The lens relies on the effect of negative refractive index. The lecture will describe the new lens, discuss the new materials required for its construction, and review progress towards an experimental realisation.