Perfect absorption and giant magnification with a thin metamaterial layer

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that a thin metamaterial layer with zero real permittivity and permeability can achieve perfect absorption or giant magnification, even with minimal imaginary parts, by using a total-reflection substrate or not.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach to achieve perfect absorption and giant magnification using ultra-thin metamaterials with specific electromagnetic properties.

Findings

Perfect absorption with thin metamaterials is possible using a total-reflection substrate.

Giant magnification can occur without a substrate.

Small imaginary parts of permittivity and permeability are sufficient for these effects.

Abstract

It is shown that perfect absorption and giant amplification can be realized when a wave impinges on a special metamaterial layer with zero real parts of the permittivity and permeability. The imaginary parts of the permittivity and permeability remain nonzero, corresponding to finite loss or gain. Perfect absorption and giant magnification can still be achieved even if the thickness of the metamaterial layer is arbitrarily thin and the absolute imaginary parts of the permittivity and permeability are very small. The metamaterial layer needs a total-reflection substrate for perfect absorption, while this is not required for giant magnification.