Left-handed materials in metallic magnetic granular composites

TL;DR

This paper explores the potential for metallic magnetic granular composites to exhibit left-handed electromagnetic properties, highlighting differences in the underlying physics compared to traditional left-handed materials.

Contribution

It proposes that magnetic composites can be left-handed, with distinct physical mechanisms involving a dominant imaginary dielectric component.

Findings

Magnetic composites can exhibit left-handed behavior.

The imaginary part of the dielectric constant dominates in these materials.

Different physics underlie their left-handed properties compared to original materials.

Abstract

There is recently interests in the ``left-handed '' materials. In these materials the direction of the wave vector of electromagnetic radiation is opposite to the direction of the energy flow. We present simple arguments that suggests that magnetic composites can also be left-handed materials. However, the physics involved seems to be different from the original argument. In our argument, the imaginary part of the dielectric constant is much larger than the real part, opposite to the original argument.