An analogy strategy for transformation optics

We introduce an analogy strategy to design transformation optical devices. Based on the similarities between field lines in different physical systems, the trajectories of light can be intuitively determined to curve in a gentle manner, and the resulting materials are isotropic and nonmagnetic. Furthermore, the physical meaning of the analogue problems plays a key role in the removal of dielectric singularities. We illustrate this approach by creating two designs of carpet cloak and a collimating lens as representative examples in twoand threedimensional spaces, respectively. The analogy strategy not only reveals the intimate connections between different physical disciplines, such as optics, fluid mechanics and electrostatics, but also provides a heuristic pathway to designing advanced photonic systems. S Online supplementary data available from stacks.iop.org/NJP/16/063008/ mmedia New Journal of Physics 16 (2014) 063008 1367-2630/14/063008+13$33.00 © 2014 IOP Publishing Ltd and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.