Mathias Fink: Wave control with "time materials"

Because time and space play a similar role in wave propagation, wave propagation is affected by spatial modulation or by time modulation of the refractive index.

In this planary session, Mathias Fink (Institut ESPCI, CNRS) emphasizes the role of time modulation. He shows that sudden changes of the medium properties generate instant wave sources that emerge instantaneously from the entire wavefield and can be used to control wavefield and to revisit the way to create time-reversed waves. Experimental demonstrations of this approach will be presented. More sophisticated time manipulations can also be studied and extension of these concepts in the field of plasmonics are also presented.

Mathias Fink is the George Charpak Professor at ESPCI Paris. He is member of the French Academy of Science. His area of research is concerned with the propagation of waves in complex media and the development of numerous instruments based on this basic research. Six start-up companies with more than 300 employees have been created from his research (Echosens, Sensitive Object, Supersonic Imagine, Time Reversal Communications, Cardiawave, and Greenerwave).

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