Design of plasmonic toroidal metamaterials at optical frequencies

Toroidal multipoles are the subject of growing interest because of their unusual electromagnetic properties different from the electric and magnetic multipoles. In this paper, we present two new related classes of plasmonic metamaterial composed of purposely arranged of four U-shaped split ring resonators (SRRs) that show profound resonant toroidal responses at optical frequencies. The toroidal and magnetic responses were investigated by the finite-element simulations. A phenomenon of reversed toroidal responses at higher and lower resonant frequencies has also been reported between this two related metamaterials which results from the electric and magnetic dipoles interaction. Finally, we propose a physical model based on coupled LC circuits to quantitatively analyze the coupled system of the plasmonic toroidal metamaterials. (C) 2012 Optical Society of America