| The ability to manipulate light with materials has been a crucial component of technological progress, revolutionizing human existence in a countless number of ways. In the past decade, a new paradigm has emerged for controlling light-matter interactions: that of metamaterials. Unprecedented advances in micromanufacturing and computational techniques have allowed researchers to shape the electromagnetic response functions of materials by structuring them on the scale smaller than the wavelength of light. Optical characteristics thereby attained can transcend anything found in nature, leading to a host of unconventional and, potentially, technologically important phenomena. These include negative refraction, diffraction-free imaging, and cloaking.;In the present dissertation, we develop the subject of non-magnetic optical metamaterials. We show that many phenomena that were originally thought to require control over the magnetic response can be found in strongly anisotropic dielectrics where one of its principal components becomes negative. We discuss the design of such a response in artificial and natural materials and show that these structures often offer simpler manufacturing and lower losses compared to traditional metamaterial designs. At the same time, they show many unconventional optical properties owing to the unique form of the photonic density of states. We explain the implications of this phenomenon for electromagnetic wave propagation, and describe several devices enabled by such materials with numerous prospective applications in light guiding and confinement, imaging, control of dipole emitters, and optical detection. |
