Strongly anisotropic waveguide as a nonmagnetic left-handed system

Abstract

We develop an approach to build a material with negative refraction index that can be implemented for optical and infrared frequencies. In contrast to conventional designs that require simultaneously negative dielectric permittivity and magnetic permeability and rely on a resonance to achieve a nonzero magnetic response, our material is intrinsically nonmagnetic and makes use of an anisotropic dielectric constant to provide a lefthanded behavior in waveguide geometry. We demonstrate that the proposed material can support surface (polariton) waves, and show the connection between the polaritons and the enhancement of evanescent fields, also known as superlensing.