Novel approach to a perfect lens

TL;DR

This paper challenges the conventional understanding of Veselago lenses by analytically showing they do not focus light traditionally, instead redistributing energy within the metamaterial, with implications for quantum entanglement.

Contribution

It provides an exact analytical solution demonstrating that negative index slabs do not focus in the usual sense, offering a new perspective on their optical properties.

Findings

Veselago lens does not focus light traditionally

Energy flows from object and image to inside the slab

Potential application in creating entangled atomic states

Abstract

Within the framework of an exact analytical solution of Maxwell equations in a space domain, it is shown that optical scheme based on a slab with negative refractive index ($n=-1$) (Veselago lens or Pendry lens) does not possess focusing properties in the usual sense . In fact, the energy in such systems does not go from object to its "image", but from object and its "image" to an intersection point inside a metamaterial layer, or vice versa. A possibility of applying this phenomenon to a creation of entangled states of two atoms is discussed.