Ideal metamaterials would consist of metal conductors only that are necessary for negative ε and μ. However, most of present-day metamaterials include dielectrics for various support functions. Overcoming dielectrics, we manufactured free-standing THz metamaterials as bi-layer chips of S-string arrays suspended by window-frames at a small gap that controls the resonance frequency. Remaining problems concerning their useful range of incidence angles and the possibility of stacking have been solved by manufacturing the first self-supported free-standing all-metal metamaterials featuring upright S-strings interconnected by metal rods. Large-area slabs show maximum magnetic coupling at normal incidence with left-handed resonances between 3.2 - 4.0 THz. Such metamaterials which we dub the meta-foil represent an ideal platform for including index-gradient optics to achieve optical functionalities like beam deflection and imaging.

Date Published: 1 September 2009
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 7392, Metamaterials: Fundamentals and Applications II, 73920E (1 September 2009); doi: 10.1117/12.826679

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7392:
Metamaterials: Fundamentals and Applications II
Mikhail A. Noginov; Nikolay I. Zheludev; Allan D. Boardman; Nader Engheta, Editor(s)