Metamaterials

purushothaman

1st July 2011 - 10:13 PM

hai..

i have a question on metamaterials.... usually the velocity of electromagnetic wave in a medium is 1/sqrt(mu*epsilon)...in case of metamaterials, especially single negative ones, say, epsilon becomes negative...velocity becomes imaginary.. what is the physical interpretation of this imaginary velocity.....can somebody explain this to me...???pls...

NymphaeaAlba

4th July 2011 - 03:00 AM

The real and imaginary parts of the complex refractive index are related through use of the Kramers–Kronig relations. For example, one can determine a material's full complex refractive index as a function of wavelength from an absorption spectrum of the material.

The real part of the refractive index indicates the phase speed, while the imaginary part indicates the amount of absorption loss when the electromagnetic wave propagates through the material.

Kramer-Kronig Relations

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