Negative refraction and imaging beyond the diffraction limit by a two-dimensional left-handed metamaterial

Abstract

We report our experimental results on two-dimensional left-handed metamaterials (LHM) exhibiting negative refraction and subwavelength imaging. Transmission and reflection spectra of LHM are studied and a left-handed transmission band is observed at the frequencies where both dielectric permittivity and magnetic permeability are negative. Impedance matching is verified both with the experiments and simulations. The two-dimensional LHM structure is verified to have a negative refractive index. We employed three different methods to observe negative refraction; refraction through prism-shaped LHM, beam shifting method, and phase shift experiments. We further demonstrated subwavelength imaging and resolution using LHM superlenses. The effect of thickness on the resolving power is investigated experimentally.