A combinatorial approach to metamaterials discovery

We report a high throughput combinatorial approach to photonic metamaterial optimization. The new approach is based on parallel synthesis and subsequent optical characterization of large numbers of spatially addressable nanofabricated metamaterial samples (libraries) with quasi-continuous variation of design parameters under real manufacturing conditions. We illustrate this method for Fano-resonance plasmonic nanostructures, arriving at explicit recipes for high quality factors needed for switching and sensing applications.