A Sub-Wavelength Focusing Lens Composed of a Dual-Plate Metamaterial Providing a Negative Refractive Index

摘要

We have proposed a metamaterial lens that enables sub-wavelength focusing, which is shorter than an operating wavelength. Our lens is a two dimensional array of a unit cell consisting of a metallic dual-plate printed on a dielectric substrate. The unique dual-plate structure provides negativeness both in permittivity and permeability, with no help from conventional additional structures, which are normally printed on the opposite of metallic patterns. Therefore, we can focus a source (or an image) in a tiny distance shorter than the free space wavelength (${lambda}$) at the frequencies of interest. Furthermore, since the proposed geometry does not need separate supplementary structures to acquire negative permittivity or permeability, our lens is much simpler than conventional metamaterial lenses, which is a strong point in practical applications. We have validated sub-wavelength focusing ability in a 6 GHz frequency band through an experiment of near field scanning, which provided the width of about 0.19 ${lambda}$ at a half maximum of a peak value of an measured image. The width of the focused image through the lens is more than 4 times shorter than that without the lens, which confirms the validity of our design approach.