Experimental Demonstration of Negative-Index Propagation in a Rectangular Waveguide Loaded With Complementary Split-Ring Resonators

Abstract

In a recent paper, we studied a metamaterial consisting of stacked metal plates loaded by embedded complementary split-ring resonators (C-SRRs), ideal to support negative-index propagation and reversed Cherenkov radiation. Here, we experimentally verify negative-index propagation in a related structure, a conventional X-band waveguide loaded with a single column of C-SRRs, emulating a unit cell of an effective bulk negative-index metamaterial. Measurements and supporting simulations reveal a passband between 4.2 and 4.6 GHz, with a phase response typical of negative-index propagation.