Negative refractive index designed in a periodic composite of lossy microplasmas and microresonators

A novel metamaterial with negative refractive index was designed using a spatially periodic composite of microplasmas and microresonators. Microresonators, which are double-helix metal wires in this report, work as an origin of macroscopic negative permeability material, as well as discharge electrodes. If a resonance frequency of the resonators is well below electron plasma frequency of the microplasmas where their permittivity is negative in the real part with a certain imaginary part, the macroscopic refractive index becomes negative just above the resonance frequency where the macroscopic permeability is negative, even if microplasmas are fairly lossy; due to such a loss or conductive component in permittivity, electromagnetic waves are not evanescent but propagating. This result indicates that plasmas can play important roles in parameter control of a metamaterial with a complex refractive index.