Collective interactions in Metamaterials and Cold Atomic Gases: Manipulating Light in Ensembles of Electromagnetic Emitters

In this seminar, we will discuss how interactions between discrete electromagnetic (EM) emitters lead to a cooperative response of a metamaterial or cold atomic gas to an incident field.  We will examine a number of ways the cooperative response can be engineered and exploited. The interactions responsible arise from repeated scattering of the field between its discrete constituent elements. Our focus will be on metamaterials, which are composed of subwavelength circuit elements - or meta-atoms - whose electric and magnetic multipole interactions are governed by their design.  We also apply these ideas to atoms in an optical lattice. Understanding cooperative interactions between cold atoms may be useful, for example, in the further enhancement of quantum memories.