US Patent 7695646 - Qdot metamaterial

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7695646.html

Metamaterials usually refer to composites which exhibit a negative index of refraction useful to create high resolution optics and having some potential for cloaking devices. One problem with some metamaterials is high signal attenuation. This patent from HP teaches a variety of metamaterial using quantum dots to produce a less lossy metamaterial composite. Claim 1 reads:

1. A composite material configured to exhibit at least one of a negative effective permittivity and a negative effective permeability for incident radiation of at least one wavelength, the composite material comprising

an arrangement of electromagnetically resonant cells having smaller dimension relative to said wavelength,

each cell having a plurality of quantum dots,

each of the electromagnetically resonant cells comprising an electrical conductor,

wherein the quantum dots are integrated into the electrical conductor for enhancing a resonant response thereof to the incident radiation at said wavelength.