Chirped metamaterials

1. An apparatus, comprising:

a medium that is a metamaterial over a frequency range; and

wherein the medium is formed of a stack of layers or slabs; and

wherein a thickness of the layers or slabs, a spacing between nearest neighboring ones of the layers or slabs, an electrical property of the layers or slabs of the stack, or a magnetic property of the layers or slabs varies monotonically and smoothly between neighboring ones of the layers or slabs of the stack.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein a magnetic or an electrical resonant frequency of individual circuit components of the layers or slabs of the stack varies monotonically and smoothly between neighboring ones of the layers or slabs.

3. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein an electric permittivity or a magnetic permeability varies monotonically and smoothly between neighboring ones of the layers or slabs.

4. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the stack has an electrical permittivity that has a negative real part along a first direction and has a positive real part along an orthogonal second direction.

5. The apparatus of claim 4 , further comprising an optical pump source connected to pump the medium such that the medium wavelength-converts light input therein with a selected frequency.

6. The apparatus of claim 4 , further comprising an optical pump source connected to pump the medium such that the medium is able to correct cumulative optical dispersion or a cumulative nonlinear optical distortion of an optical signal stream introduced therein.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the stack includes a stack of bilayers, each bilayer including a conducting sublayer neighboring a dielectric or semiconducting sublayer.

8. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein each layer includes a two-dimensional array of magnetically resonant circuit components and a two-dimensional array of electrically resonant circuit components; and

wherein a physical dimension of some of said resonant circuit components varies monotonically and smoothly between neighboring ones of the layers or slabs.

9. The apparatus of claim 8 , wherein the magnetically resonant circuit components are split ring resonators, and a gap distance of said split ring resonators or a spacing of concentric split rings in the magnetically resonant circuit components varies monotonically and smoothly between neighboring ones of the layers or slabs.

10. The apparatus of claim 8 , wherein the electrically resonant circuit components include split conducting strip resonators, and one of a gap distance between strips of said split conducting strip resonators and a length of said split conducting strip resonators varies monotonically and smoothly between neighboring ones of the layers or slabs.

11. The apparatus of claim 8 , wherein the magnetically resonant circuit components include split ring resonators, and a spacing distance between co-centric rings of said split ring resonators varies monotonically and smoothly between neighboring ones of the layers or slabs.

12. The apparatus of claim 8 , wherein the resonant circuit components include split rings and/or conducting strips, and a resistance of said split rings and/or conducting strips varies monotonically and smoothly between neighboring ones of the layers or slabs.

13. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the medium behaves as a metamaterial at an infrared or a visible wavelength of light.

14. A method, comprising:

transmitting a beam of light to a medium that is a metamaterial over a frequency range of the light; and

outputting a beam of light at a surface of the medium in response to the transmitting; and

wherein the medium is formed of a stack of layers or slabs; and

wherein a thickness of the layers or slabs, a spacing between nearest neighboring ones of the layers or slabs, an electrical property of the layers or slabs, or a magnetic property of the layers or slabs is chirped to vary monotonically and smoothly across the stack.

15. The method of claim 14 , wherein the transmitted beam of light is selected to approximately resonantly excite circuit components in the layers or slabs.

16. The method of claim 15 , wherein the circuit components have resonant frequencies that are chirped across the stack.

17. The method of claim 14 , wherein the stack has an electrical permittivity that has a negative real part along a first direction and has a positive real part along an orthogonal second direction.