Deep subwavelength beam propagation in extremely loss-anisotropic metamaterials

TL;DR

This paper introduces loss-anisotropic multilayer metamaterials with ultra-large imaginary permittivity components, enabling diffraction-free, deep subwavelength beam propagation and manipulation, even in practical structures considering nonlocal effects.

Contribution

It proposes and designs new loss-anisotropic metamaterials with extreme loss properties, demonstrating deep subwavelength beam propagation and practical realization considering nonlocal effects.

Findings

Diffraction-free deep subwavelength beam propagation demonstrated.

Nearly flat iso-frequency contour enables beam manipulation.

Practical multilayer structures can realize these effects with large periods.

Abstract

Metal-dielectric multilayer metamaterials with extreme loss-anisotropy, in which the longitudinal component of the permittivity tensor has ultra-large imaginary part, are proposed and designed. Diffraction-free deep subwavelength beam propagation and manipulation, due to the nearly flat iso-frequency contour (IFC), is demonstrated in such loss-anisotropic metamaterials. It is also shown that deep subwavelength beam propagation can be realized in practical multilayer structures with large multilayer period, when the nonlocal effect is considered.