Highly flexible metamaterial designs in sub-terahertz using MEMS technique

In this paper, two different micron-scale negative refraction index metamaterials with fine flexibility are proposed. The proposed metamaterials are composed of “Quasi-S” structure and “H” structure respectively. Different from conventional metamaterials, the designs proposed in this paper apply to perpendicular incident waves. Both metamaterials are designed and optimized for sub-terahertz application. Both metamaterials can produce negative refraction index around 100GHz. Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) technique is adopted to fabricate the proposed metamaterials due to their micron dimension geometric scales. The fabricated metamaterial film shows excellent flexibility in practical use due to its light weight and pliability. The refraction index produced by Quasi-S structure and H structure are approximately −14 and −80 respectively. A horn antenna is used to examine the metamaterial's impacts on wave propagation around 100GHz. Antenna gain enhancement can be achieved (e.g. approximately 3.012dB at certain directions.)