A novel metamaterial design for achieving a large group index via classical electromagnetically induced reflectance

In a numerical study, we propose a metamaterial structure mimicking electromagnetically induced reflectance at microwave frequencies. The structure contains imprinted metallic elements, including two long and two short wires on a dielectric substrate. In analyzing different loss mechanisms affecting the resonance behavior of the structure, we study effects of temperature and metallic thickness in detail, and see an enhanced resonance behavior as the temperature is reduced or the metallic thickness is increased. In applications, we first show that the proposed structure can be used as a sensitive microwave sensor. Furthermore, the group index of the structure is calculated to be 563.8 at 15.14 GHz, which can also be further increased by reducing temperature and increasing metallic thickness. Even this value is high compared to the values reported in the literature at microwave frequencies, and makes the structure a good candidate for slow light applications.