Parallel-plate metamaterials for cloaking structures

Mario G. Silveirinha, University of Pennsylvania
Andrea Alù, University of Pennsylvania
Nader Engheta, University of Pennsylvania

Article comments

Reprinted from Physical Review E, Volume 75, Article 036603, March 2007, 16 pages.
Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.75.036603

Abstract

In this work, we assess theoretically the physical response of metamaterial composite structures that emulate the behavior of negative-permittivity materials in certain relevant setups. The metamaterials under analysis consist of metallic parallel-plate implants embedded in a dielectric host in a two-dimensional geometry. Simple design rules and formulas are presented, fully considering the effect and consequences of excitation of higher-order diffraction modes at the metamaterial-dielectric interface. Following the ideas of transparency and cloaking developed by us [Alù and Engheta, Phys. Rev. E 72, 016623 (2005)], we demonstrate, analytically and numerically, that it is possible in this way to design metamaterial cloaks that significantly reduce the total scattering cross section of a given two-dimensional dielectric obstacle in some frequency band. This effect, which may be realized in a feasible way, may find interesting applications in electromagnetic cloaking, total scattering cross section reduction, and noninvasive probing.