ESSENCE - International Journal for Environmental Rehabilitation and Conservation
Badoni et al./Vol. VI [2] 2015/148 - 154
Volume VI: No. 2 2015 [148 – 154]
Metamaterials: Characteristics, Structures And Applications
Badoni, Anumeha; Belwal, Pravesh and Kumar, Nitin
Received: October 17, 2015  Accepted: November 05, 2015  Online: December 31, 2015
Abstract
Metamaterial (MTM) is a metallic or
semiconductor substance whose properties
depend upon its inter atomic structure rather
than on the composition of the atoms
themselves. In this paper, overview of unique
properties of MTMs is presented. Further
discussion is held over MTM structures
based on their resonant characteristics
(Resonant and non resonant structure) and
their applications in various fields. The
superiority of non resonant structure over the
resonant structure is also discussed in this
paper. Applications of MTMs are
characterized in three categories: guided
wave application, radiated wave application
and Refracted wave applications.
Keywords Metamaterials (MTM) | negative
refractive index | split ring resonator | CRLH
For Correspondence:
Department of ECE, DIT University Dehradun, India
[ISSN 0975 - 6272]
[www.essence-journal.com]
Introduction
As the light propagates through matter,
conventional materials only react to the
electric field, resulting in most common
optical effects, including refraction,
diffraction and imaging (Jackson, 1999). Five
decades ago Russian physicist victor
veselago pondered about whether magnetic
field of light interacts with matter. Then he
classify the materials based on permittivity
and permeability according to their sign
(positive and negative).In electromagnetism
electric permittivity and the magnetic
permeability determine the propagation of
electromagnetic waves in matter (Veselago,
1968), due to the fact that they are the only
parameters of substance appear
Fig1: Classification of materials
in the dispersion equation. According to
veselago the materials in third quadrant
shows the reverse properties than
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conventional materials and are named as left
handed materials.
After more than thirty years, Pendry and
Smith have developed a novel class of
metallic structure based on thin wires and
Split ring resonators (SRR) that are known as
metamaterials (Pendry et al., 1999; Smith et
al., 2000 and Pendry et al.,1998). The
concept of MTM transmission line(TL) was
introduced for the first time in 2002 (Iyer and
Eleftheriades, 2002). Caloz and Smith given
their useful work on MTM TL.
Unique Properties of Metamaterials
Metamaterials are defined as artificial
effectively homogeneous structures with
unusual properties not readily available in
nature. For an effectively homogeneous
structure the average cell size ‘p’ of a
structure should be much smaller than the
guided wavelength ‘λ g ’. Averaged cell size
should be at least small than quarter of
guided wavelength[8]. Therefore the
condition for effective homogeneity
p = λ g /4 (1)
For metamaterials with negative permittivity
and permeability, several names and
terminologies have been suggested, such as
“left-handed” media (Veselago, 1968), media
with negative refractive index (Iyer and
Eleftheriades, 2002), “backward-wave
media” (Lindell et al. 2001); and “double-
negative (DNG)” metamaterials (Sanada et
al., 2003), to name a few. MTM shows
Negative permittivity and permeability which
results in negative refractive index. Due to
negative index, it supports backward waves
i.e. inside MTM, phase velocities and group
velocities are antiparallel. MTM shows
reversal of some fundamental laws like
Snell’s law, Doppler effect, Vavilov-
Cerenkov radiation etc. Due to these unusual
properties, MTM can change the propagation
property of electromagnetic wave passing
through it. Miniaturization in the size of the
design component is possible as the structural
cell size of MTM is less than one-fourth of
the guided wavelength (Paul et al., 2013). To
understand why such materials are also called
left hand materials, let us assume time
harmonic and plane wave variation for field
in maxwell’s equation
E(x, y, z, t) = 𝐸𝐸.𝑒𝑒 𝑗𝑗𝑗𝑗𝑗𝑗 −𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 .𝑟𝑟 (2)
where wave vector k has been introduced,
Maxwell equation take the form
k × E = -𝜔𝜔𝜇𝜇𝑜𝑜 𝜇𝜇𝑟𝑟 𝐻𝐻 (3)
𝑘𝑘 × 𝐻𝐻 = +𝜔𝜔𝜀𝜀𝑜𝑜 𝜀𝜀𝑟𝑟 𝐸𝐸 (4)
From the above equation and definition of
cross product, one can immediately see that
for 𝜀𝜀𝑟𝑟 >0 and 𝜇𝜇𝑟𝑟 >0 the vector E,H and
k from a right handed triplet of vectors, and if
𝜀𝜀𝑟𝑟 <0 and 𝜇𝜇𝑟𝑟 <0 they from a left handed
system.
Elementary Structure of Metamaterials
Metals at optical frequencies are
characterized by its electric permittivity that
varies with frequency according to the Drude
relation
𝜔𝜔 𝑝𝑝 2
𝜀𝜀(𝜔𝜔) = 𝜀𝜀𝑜𝑜 � 1 − � (5)
𝜔𝜔 (𝜔𝜔+𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 )
where ω p 2= Ne2/me 0 is the plasma frequency
i.e. the frequency with which the collection
of free electron (plasma) oscillates in the
presence of an external driving field, where
N= electron density, e = electron charge, m=
mass of electron, ϒ = rate at which the
amplitude of the plasma oscillation
decreases.
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By the drude relation it can see that when
ϒ=0 and ω<ω p then value of ‘e’ is less than
zero i.e. the medium is characterized by
negative permittivity. Unfortunately for all
frequencies for which ω<ωp while ϒ is very
large which is associated with losses(light
absorption) therefore negative permittivity
was imaginary in past.
Pendry first proposed a thin metallic structure
to overcome this limitation. The plasma
frequency which depends on the density and
mass of the collective electron motion is very
low in that thin wire structure (Smith et al.,
2000). This give rises to two effects, firstly,
the effective electron mass is increased due
to self inductance of the wire structure.
Secondly, the effective electron density is
apparently reduced. Thin metallic wires give
negative permittivity when electric field is
directed in the z-axis (Pendry et al., 1996).
SRR shows negative permeability when its y
axis is perpendicular to magnetic field. A
combined array of thin wires and split rings
shows that simultaneously negative
permittivity and permeability are achieved.
Fig 2. (a) thin metallic wires (b) split ring
resonators (Smith et al., 2000)
Classification of MTM Structure
Resonance type MTM: Resonant structures
are made of thin wires and/or split ring
resonator (Pendry et al., 1999). They are
narrow band or high loss structure due to
their resonant characteristics. SRR and
complimentary split ring resonator (CSRR)
falls in this category. Equivalent circuits for
SRR and CSRR are given below (Baena et
al., 2005)
Fig.(a).SRR with its equivalent circuit
(b).CSRR with its equivalent circuit
(Baena et al., 2005)
A variety of split ring resonators have been
come into existence by researchers i.e. square
split rings (Majid et al., 2008), omega split
rings (Othman et al.,2009), S type structure
(Patel and Kosta, 2014), R split rings (Reddy
and Raghavan, 2015), single split rings
(Nornikman et al., 2012), and many more. In
2003, a new category of CRLH resonant
antenna comes into existence (Sanada et al.,
2003). CRLH resonant antenna has several
advantages over resonator type antenna.
Different types of CRLH resonant antennas
have been investigated with their specific
applications.
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Non resonant type MTM: Resonant β can be real and imaginary; when β is
structure was lossy with narrow bandwidth, purely imaginary γ = α a stop band occurs in
limited its applications. Non resonant the frequency range which shows the unique
transmission line (TL) structures are made of characteristic of CRLH TL. The equivalent
lumped inductors and capacitors, have low circuit of CRLH TL and its dispersion
loss over a broad bandwidth under diagram in balanced condition is shown in
appropriate matching conditions and fig.
overcomes the limitation of resonant type
MTM. Composite right and left handed
transmission line (CRLH TL) falls in this
category. CRLH is combination of left
handed (LH) and right handed (RH)
transmission line because in general a pure
left hand structure is not possible due to
unavoidable right hand parasitic series
(a)
inductance and shunt capacitance effects. The
propagation constant of a transmission line is
given by
γ = α + jβ =√Z’Y’ (6)
where Z’ and Y’ are respectively the per unit
length impedance and per unit length
admittance. In the case of CRLH TL, Z’ and
Y’ are defined as [24]
1 (b)
𝑍𝑍 ′ (𝜔𝜔) = j �𝜔𝜔𝐿𝐿𝑅𝑅 ′ − ′ � (7)
𝜔𝜔 𝐶𝐶𝐿𝐿
Fig 4. (a) Equivalent circuit model of
′ ′ 1
𝑌𝑌 (𝜔𝜔) = 𝑗𝑗 �𝜔𝜔𝐶𝐶𝑅𝑅 − � (8) CRLH (b) dispersion diagram in
𝜔𝜔 𝐿𝐿𝐿𝐿 ′
balance condition
Therefore the dispersion relation for a
homogeneous CRLH TL is Balanced condition of CRLH TL is achieved
when series and shunt resonance are equal.
𝛽𝛽(𝜔𝜔) =
Under balanced condition the propagation
1 𝐿𝐿𝑅𝑅 ′ 𝐶𝐶𝑅𝑅 ′
𝑆𝑆(𝜔𝜔)�𝜔𝜔 2 𝐿𝐿𝑅𝑅 ′ 𝐶𝐶𝑅𝑅 ′ + ′ −� ′ + � (9) constant reduces to the simpler expression
𝜔𝜔 2 𝐿𝐿𝐿𝐿 ′ 𝐶𝐶𝐿𝐿 𝐿𝐿𝐿𝐿 𝐶𝐶𝐿𝐿 ′

Where 𝑆𝑆(𝜔𝜔) 𝛽𝛽 = 𝛽𝛽𝑅𝑅 + 𝛽𝛽𝐿𝐿 = 𝜔𝜔�𝐿𝐿𝑅𝑅 ′ 𝐶𝐶𝑅𝑅 ′ −

1
(10)
𝜔𝜔 �𝐿𝐿𝐿𝐿 ′ 𝐶𝐶𝐿𝐿 ′
⎧ 1 1
⎪ −1 𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 𝜔𝜔 < 𝜔𝜔𝑟𝑟1 = min � , �
⎪ �𝐿𝐿𝑅𝑅 ′ 𝐶𝐶𝐿𝐿 ′ �𝐿𝐿𝐿𝐿 ′ 𝐶𝐶𝑅𝑅 ′ • Superiority of Non- resonant Structure
= over Resonant Structure: The structure
⎨
1 1 made of resonating element generally does
⎪
⎪ +1 𝑖𝑖𝑖𝑖 𝜔𝜔 > 𝜔𝜔𝑟𝑟2 = max � ′ ′ , ′ ′�
�𝐿𝐿𝑅𝑅 𝐶𝐶𝐿𝐿 �𝐿𝐿𝐿𝐿 𝐶𝐶𝑅𝑅 not constitute a good transmission medium
⎩
for a modulated signal because of the quality
factor intrinsically associated with each
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resonator (Collin, 1992). In 2002, to
overcome this limitation a new approach of
transmission line is being introduced.
Because of their non-resonant nature, TL
MTMs can be designed to exhibit
simultaneously low loss and broad
bandwidth, where low loss is achieved by a
balanced design and broad bandwidth can be
directly controlled by its LC parameters.
Another advantage of TL MTM structures is
that they can be engineered in planar
configurations, compatible with modern
microwave integrated circuits (MICs).
Finally, TL MTM structures can benefit from
the efficient and well-established TL theory
for the efficient design of microwave
applications.
Application of MTM
MTMs have many microwave applications
which may be classified in three
categories:guided wave, radiated wave and
refracted wave application.
Guided Wave Applications: In guided wave
applications may be 1D or 2D CRLH TL.
Electromagnetic energy remains confined in
the metal and dielectric media constituting
the components. Some 1D guided wave
applications are dual band components,
quarter wavelength transmission line and
stubs,passive components(quadrature hybrid
and Wilkinson power divider),nonlinear
components,couplers etc.
Radiated Wave Application: Radiated-
wave applications cover several types of
novel antennas and reflectors, which may be
1D or 2D, passive or active, and static or
dynamically tuned. If a MTM structure is
open to free space and support a fast wave
mode called a leaky wave mode, it radiates
and can therefore be used as an antenna.
Leaky wave antenna and resonant type
CRLH TL comes in this category.
Refracted Wave Application: In refracted
wave applications some examples are planar
distributed negative lens, microwave surface
plasmons etc. A 2-D LH TL circuit using LC
lumped-element components has been
implemented and its NRI focusing property
has been shown experimentally by an NRI
slab lens (Lai et al., 2004).
Conclusion
Metamaterials have become an extremely
exciting research area. The unique
electromagnetic properties of MTMs attract
considerable attention of research. Non
resonant structures who are recently
discovered have several advantages over the
previous structures with having many
applications in the field of microwaves.
Many other fascinating discoveries and
applications are waiting for us to explore
with the complete degree of freedom to
control over material properties.
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