Experimental demonstration of subwavelength focusing of electromagnetic waves by labyrinth-based two-dimensional metamaterials

Abstract

We studied focusing in a two-dimensional metamaterial that was based on a labyrinth structure. We theoretically showed that the labyrinth-based metamaterial exhibits negative indices of refraction between 6 and 6.4 GlIz. We experimentally studied the focusing effect by measuring electric field intensities on the output side of the metamaterial when the source was placed in front of the input side of the metamaterial. Our experimental results showed that it is in fact possible to focus the source field with half-widths as small as lambda/4 by using the labyrinth-based metamaterial. (c) 2006 Optical Society of America.