Low-Loss, Broadband and Tunable Negative Refractive Index Metamaterial

Y.J. Huang, G.J. Wen, T.Q. Li, K. Xie

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DOI: 10.4236/jemaa.2010.22015                

Abstract

This paper report on a low-loss, broadband, and tunable negative refractive index metamaterial (NRIM) consisting of yttrium iron garnet (YIG) slabs and printed circuit boards (PCBs). The YIG slabs under an applied magnetic field provide a negative permeability and the PCBs provide a negative permittivity. The substrates of the PCBs decuple the interactions between the YIG slabs and wire array deposed on such substrates. The effective electromagnetic parameters of the NRIM and the conditions of exhibiting the negative refractive index character are analyzed theoretically. Then the negative transmission and negative refraction characters are investigated numerically and experimentally. The results indicate that the NRIM exhibits negative pass band within the X-band with a bandwidth of about 1 GHz and a peak transmission power of about - 2.5 dB. While changing the applied magnetic field from 2300 Oe to 2700 Oe, the measured pass band of NRIM shift from 8.42 GHz to 9.50 GHz with a 2.7 MHz/Oe step. The results open a sample way to fabricate the NRIM, further, the metamaterial cloak and absorber.

Keywords

Metamaterial, Negative Refractive Index, Tunability, Low-Loss, Broadband

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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