Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Recently, artificial meta-materials have been reported [1] that have a negative index of refraction, which allows a homogeneous flat slab of the material to behave as a perfect lens [2], possibly even creating sub-diffraction limited focusing. These novel artificial materials have numerous potential applications in science, technology, and medicine [3],especially if their novel behavior can be extended to the technologically critical near-infrared and visible region.The meta-materials consist of split-ring resonators which provide a negative m, and metal strips which provide a negative e. First steps towards scaling the dimensions of these metamaterials have been recently taken with the fabrication of split-ring resonator structures showing magnetic resonances at about1 THz [4] and 100 THz [5] frequencies.