S-polarization Brewster's angle of stratified metal-dielectric metamaterial in optical regime

Abstract

We demonstrate that the optical reflectivity for s-polarized light vanishes at a certain angle in a stratified metal-dielectric metamaterial numerically and experimentally. The metamaterial consists of a unit cell where a Ag layer of 30 nm thickness is sandwiched by Al2O3 layers of 60 nm thickness. In order to understand the phenomenon in terms of effective permittivity and permeability, we extended a field-sampling method. The permeability is found to be significantly different from unity, which is the origin of Brewster's angle for s-polarization. The microscopic field distribution is readily coarse grained with the effective optical parameters. The present result is a manifestation of the magnetic response in the optical regime. © 2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.