Band characterization of topological photonic crystals using the broadband Green's function technique.

A novel method is developed in this paper to characterize the band diagram and band modal fields of gyromagnetic photonic crystals that support topological one-way edge states. The proposed method is based on an integral equation formulation that utilizes the broadband Green's function (BBGF). The BBGF is a hybrid representation of the periodic lattice Green's function with imaginary extractions that has accelerated convergence and is suitable for broadband evaluations. The effects of the tensor permeability of the gyromagnetic scatterers are incorporated in a new formulation of surface integral equations (SIEs) with BBGF as the kernel that can be solved by the method of moments. The results are compared against Comsol simulations for various cases to demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed method. Simulations results are illustrated and discussed for the modes of topological photonic crystals in relation to the physics of degeneracy, applied magnetic fields, and bandgaps.

Scattering of waves by a half-space of periodic scatterers using broadband Green's function.

An efficient scatterer-free full-wave solution for plane wave scattering from a half-space of two-dimensional (2D) periodic scatterers is derived using broadband Green's function. The Green's function is constructed using band solutions of the infinite periodic structure, and it satisfies boundary conditions on all the scatterers. A low wavenumber extraction technique is applied to the Green's function to accelerate the convergence of the modal expansion. This facilitates the Green's function with low wavenumber extraction (BBGFL) to be evaluated over a broadband as the modal solutions are independent of wavenumber. Coupled surface integral equations (SIE) are constructed using the BBGFL and the free-space Green's function respectively for the two half-spaces with unknowns only on the interface. The method is distinct from the effective medium approach which represents the periodic scatters with an effective medium. This new approach provides accurate near-field solutions around the interface with localized field patterns useful for surface plasmon polaritons and topological edge states examinations.

Scattering of electromagnetic waves from 3D multilayer random rough surfaces based on the second-order small perturbation method: energy conservation, reflectivity, and emissivity.

A theoretical investigation of energy conservation, reflectivity, and emissivity in the scattering of electromagnetic waves from 3D multilayer media with random rough interfaces using the second-order small perturbation method (SPM2) is presented. The approach is based on the extinction theorem and develops integral equations for surface fields in the spectral domain. Using the SPM2, we calculate the scattered and transmitted coherent fields and incoherent fields. Reflected and transmitted powers are then found in the form of 2D integrations over wavenumber in the spectral domain. In the integrand, there is a summation over the spectral densities of each of the rough interfaces with each weighted by a corresponding kernel function. We show in this paper that there exists a "strong" condition of energy conservation in that the kernel functions multiplying the spectral density of each interface obey energy conservation exactly. This means that energy is conserved independent of the roughness spectral densities of the rough surfaces. Results of this strong condition are illustrated numerically for up to 50 rough interfaces without requiring specification of surface roughness properties. Two examples are illustrated. One is a multilayer configuration having weak contrasts between adjacent layers, random layer thicknesses, and randomly generated permittivity profiles. The second example is a photonic crystal of periodically alternating permittivities of larger dielectric contrast. The methodology is applied to study the effect of roughness on the brightness temperatures of the Antarctic ice sheet, which is characterized by layers of ice with permittivity fluctuations in addition to random rough interfaces. The results show that the influence of roughness can significantly increase horizontally polarized thermal emission while leaving vertically polarized emissions relatively unaffected.

Calculations of band diagrams and low frequency dispersion relations of 2D periodic dielectric scatterers using broadband Green's function with low wavenumber extraction (BBGFL).

The broadband Green's function with low wavenumber extraction (BBGFL) is applied to the calculations of band diagrams of two-dimensional (2D) periodic structures with dielectric scatterers. Periodic Green's functions of both the background and the scatterers are used to formulate the dual surface integral equations by approaching the surface of the scatterer from outside and inside the scatterer. The BBGFL are applied to both periodic Green's functions. By subtracting a low wavenumber component of the periodic Green's functions, the broadband part of the Green's functions converge with a small number of Bloch waves. The method of Moment (MoM) is applied to convert the surface integral equations to a matrix eigenvalue problem. Using the BBGFL, a linear eigenvalue problem is obtained with all the eigenmodes computed simultaneously giving the multiband results at a point in the Brillouin zone Numerical results are illustrated for the honeycomb structure. The results of the band diagrams are in good agreement with the planewave method and the Korringa Kohn Rostoker (KKR) method. By using the lowest band around the Γ point, the low frequency dispersion relations are calculated which also give the effective propagation constants and the effective permittivity in the low frequency limit.

Scaling laws for the mechanics of loose and cohesive granular materials based on Baxter's sticky hard spheres.

We have conducted discrete element simulations (pfc3d) of very loose, cohesive, granular assemblies with initial configurations which are drawn from Baxter's sticky hard sphere (SHS) ensemble. The SHS model is employed as a promising auxiliary means to independently control the coordination number z_{c} of cohesive contacts and particle volume fraction ϕ of the initial states. We focus on discerning the role of z_{c} and ϕ for the elastic modulus, failure strength, and the plastic consolidation line under quasistatic, uniaxial compression. We find scaling behavior of the modulus and the strength, which both scale with the cohesive contact density ν_{c}=z_{c}ϕ of the initial state according to a power law. In contrast, the behavior of the plastic consolidation curve is shown to be independent of the initial conditions. Our results show the primary control of the initial contact density on the mechanics of cohesive granular materials for small deformations, which can be conveniently, but not exclusively explored within the SHS-based assembling procedure.