Optical magnetic plasma in artificial flowers

We report the design of an artificial flower-like structure that supports a magnetic plasma in the optical domain. The structure is composed of alternating "petals" of conventional dielectrics (epsilon > 0) and plasmonic materials (Re(epsilon ) < 0). The induced effective magnetic current on such a structure possesses a phase lag with respect to the incident TE-mode magnetic field, similar to the phase lag between the induced electric current and the incident TM-mode electric field on a metal wire. An analogy is thus drawn with an artificial electric plasma composed of metal wires driven by a radio frequency excitation. The effective medium of an array of flowers has a negative permeability within a certain wavelength range, thus behaving as a magnetic plasma.