Sub-Wavelength Resonators: On the use of Metafilms to Overcome the λ/2 size limit

Published

March 1, 2008

Author(s)

Christopher L. Holloway, Derik Love, Edward E. Kuester, Alesandro Salandrino, Nader Engheta

Abstract

Metamaterials, in particular, double negative materials, have been used in the design of electromagnetic resonators as a means to overcome the classical $\lambda/2$ requirement. The surface equivalent of a metamaterial is a so-called metafilm, and is essentially a surface distribution of electrically small scatterers characterized by electric- and magnetic-polarizability densities. In this paper we illustrated how metafilms can be used to overcome the λ/2 size limit in order to design resonators of any desired dimension. We present expressions that relate the needed polarizaibility densities of the scatters on the metafilm to achieve any desired resonator size. To validate the analytical results in this paper, we show comparisons with a full-wave simulation of a resonator with a metafilm. The results in this paper are in principle scalable; that is, the dimensions of the scatterers can range from relatively large to relativity small depending on the frequencies of interest.

Citation

Physical Review B (Condensed Matter and Materials Physics)

Volume

2

Issue

2

Pub Type

Journals

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DOI Link

Keywords

metafilm, metamaterial, polarizability densities, resonators: generalized sheet transition conditions (GSTC), sub-wavelength cavities

Citation

Holloway, C. , Love, D. , Kuester, E. , Salandrino, A. and Engheta, N. (2008), Sub-Wavelength Resonators: On the use of Metafilms to Overcome the λ/2 size limit, Physical Review B (Condensed Matter and Materials Physics), [online], https://doi.org/10.1049/iet-map:20060309 (Accessed October 7, 2025)