Phase compensating effect in left-handed materials

Based on the difference between negative refraction and negative refractive index, the phase compensating effect was proposed to distinguish negative refraction in left-handed materials (LHMs) and photonic crystals (PCs). With this effect, perfect lens (PL) of LHM in which both propagating and evanescent waves contribute to the image could be well understood, which is differed from superlens made of PCs. Furthermore, a 1D periodic structure consisted of ordinary materials and LHMs was predicted to realize higher and wider bandgaps than the 1D conventional photonic crystal due to phase compensating effect