Electromagnetic tunneling through an inhomogeneous plasma sheath with negative-μ metamaterials

The plasma sheath wrapped outside the high-speed aircraft during reentry can cause the attenuation of communication signals and threaten the safety of aircraft, which is called radio frequency blackout. In this paper, the electromagnetic tunneling through inhomogeneous plasma sheath with negative-$\mu$ metamaterials is investigated by mean of the scattering matrix method. We find complete tunneling occurs with zero phase delay in the composite structure by properly choosing the parameters of negative-$\mu$ (MNG) metamaterials. Besides, we note resonance occurs at the interface of inhomogeneous plasma sheath and MNG. Furthermore, for thicker plasma sheath, results demonstrate the high transmittance band shifts and becomes narrower. Therefore, the paired bilayer may be an attemptable solution to mitigate radio frequency blackout, for its complete tunneling and zero phase delay.