Fabrication and test of an optical magnetic mirror

Traditional mirrors at optical wavelengths use thin metalized or dielectric layers of uniform thickness to approximate a perfect electric field boundary condition. The electron gas in such a mirror configuration oscillates in response to the incident photons and subsequently re-emit fields where the propagation and electric field vectors have been inverted and the phase of the incident magnetic field is preserved. We proposed fabrication of sub-wavelength-scale conductive structures that could be used to interact with light at a nano-scale and enable synthesis of the desired perfect magneticfield boundary condition. In a magnetic mirror, the interaction of light with the nanowires, dielectric layer and ground plate, inverts the magnetic field vector resulting in a 0 degree phase shift upon reflection. Geometries such as split ring resonators and sinusoidal conductive strips were shown to demonstrate magnetic mirror behavior in the microwave [1] and then in the visible [2]. Work to design, fabricate and test a magnetic mirror began in 2007 at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) under an Internal Research and Development (IRAD) award. Our initial nanowire geometry was sinusoidal but orthogonally asymmetric in spatial frequency, which allowed clear indications of its behavior by polarization. We report on the fabrication steps and testing of magnetic mirrors using a phase shifting interferometer and the first far-field imaging of an optical magnetic mirror.