Left-handed metamaterial based superlens for subwavelength imaging of electromagnetic waves

Abstract

Lenses made of negative index materials have the ability to focus the propagating and evanescent components of electromagnetic waves. Such a possibility enables super resolution, in turn resulting in sharper, subwavelength size images. In this present work, we present subwavelength imaging that was obtained from a one-dimensional left-handed metamaterial (LHM) composed of alternating layers of split-ring resonators and thin wires. We investigated the effect of the thickness of LHM lenses on image size. The left-handed pass band within the negative permittivity and permeability region is shown experimentally and theoretically for different thicknesses of LHM slabs. We also studied the transmission-phase of LHMs with a different number of unit cells along the propagation direction. The phase decreases with the increasing thicknesses of LHM slabs, proving that the phase velocity is negative in the left-handed transmission band.