Optical Properties of Metal Wire Array Composites

Abstract

According to effective medium theories, electrically conducting composites consisting of parallel metal wires embedded in a transparent dielectric can propagate light in the direction of the wire length. We have prepared densely packed arrays (76% volume fraction) of 10-rim diameter indium wires by high pressure injection of glass microchannel plates. For wavelengths longer than 100 Rtm (k<100 cm-) the absorption of the wire array is almost three orders of magnitude smaller than that of an indium foil of equal thickness. The measured absorption increases as k°' 45 -0 7 and can be accounted for by including magnetic dipole effects.