Experimental Demonstration and Potential Applications of a Tunable NRI Ferrite-Wire Metamaterial

The full-wave validation and experimental demonstration of a NRI metamaterial composed of an array of dielectrically insulated metal wires embedded in a ferrite substrate are reported. The simulation and experimental setup places a wedge-shaped NRI metamaterial in a parallel-plate waveguide structure and measures the refraction angles at the output of the wedge as a function of frequency and of the applied magnetic field using a circular array of tapered transmission lines, for setup size limitation and convenient matching. Moreover, two applications related to this setup are proposed: a real-time spectrum analyzer and a spatial demultiplexer.