An electromagnetic black hole made of metamaterials

Understand

Traditionally, a black hole is a region of space with huge gravitational field, which absorbs everything hitting it.

• In history, the black hole was first discussed by Laplace under the Newton mechanics, whose event horizon radius is the same as the Schwarzschild's solution of the Einstein's vacuum field equations.
• If all those objects having such an event horizon radius but different gravitational fields are called as black holes, then one can simulate certain properties of the black holes using electromagnetic fields and metamaterials due to the similar propagation behaviours of electromagnetic waves in curved space and in inhomogeneous metamaterials.
• In a recent theoretical work by Narimanov and Kildishev, an optical black hole has been proposed based on metamaterials, in which the theoretical analysis and numerical simulations showed that all electromagnetic waves hitting it are trapped and absorbed.