A combinatorial approach to metamaterials discovery

We report a high through-put combinatorial approach to photonic metamaterial optimization. The new approach is based on parallel synthesis and consecutive optical characterization of large numbers of spatially addressable nano-fabricated 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.