Deterministic amorphous metamaterials and their optical far-field response

We review the optical far-field response of artificially structured media-metamaterials-and the impact of deterministic amorphization thereon. The interest on such deterministic amorphous metamaterials recently emerged because they may bridge a conceptional gap between bottom-up and top-down fabricated metamaterials. Artificial amorphization can be implemented by means of mathematical algorithms governed by randomization or disorder parameters that assign an individual position to each single building-block, i.e. each meta-atom, of a large assembly. These meta-atoms sustain characteristic and shape-dependent optical resonances which, as consistently confirmed in experiments, show different sensitivities to deterministic amorphization. In consequence, the widely alleged necessity of a periodic lattice can be relaxed in many cases. This newly emerging direction of nanophotonic research offers novel interdisciplinary approaches to tailor the electromagnetic properties of artificial composites with elevated structural complexities.