Investigation of image formation properties of 3-D dielectric DNG and wire mesh ENZ metamaterials at microwave frequencies

The objective of the present work is to analyze and demonstrate the image formation properties of two novel types of 3-D metamaterials created by the Nanoplasmoncis and Metamaterials Research group at RIT that can be very easily fabricated. One is a Double Negative (DNG) material created by a triangular lattice of holes drilled in a high dielectric permittivity material to obtain a refractive index of -1 at 30.7GHz. The other is an Epsilon Near Zero (ENZ) metamaterial consisting of thin wire grids on Styrofoam fabricated using electronic textile technology for which the plasma frequency is 17.287 GHZ where, ε becomes zero. A comprehensive study of both structures has been done in the 3D software CST MICROWAVE STUDIO™. Measurements have been performed on the ENZ structure using an electric field probing system to validate a constant phase and field strength in the transmission plane at plasma frequency.