Fig. 1. (a) (740K) Movie of an incident beam (from below) positively refracted by a wedge sample with ε=2.2 and µ=+1. The darkened regions indicate absorber, in analogy with the experiments. The circle indicates the path along which the field plots in Fig. 2 were taken. (b) (682K) Movie showing negative refraction from a wedge with ε=-1 and µ=-1.

Fig. 2. Angular plots of the field intensity of the refracted wave at a constant radius away from a positive index wedge with ε=2.2 and µ=+1 (black curve), and a negative index wedge with ε=-1 and µ=-1 (red cruve). The dashed lines indicate the expected refraction angles as predicted by Snell’s law based on the refractive index of the materials.

Fig. 3. (a) (779 KB) Movie of an incident beam (from below) positively refracted by a wedge sample with ε=2.2 and µ=+1. (b) (662 KB) Movie showing negative refraction from a wedge with ε=-1 and µ=-1. In both cases, a stepped pattern was introduced along the refracting interface to simulate more closely the samples used in the experimental work.

Fig. 4. (595 KB) Movie of a plane wave (incident from the left) mostly reflected from an absorbing plane. Two slits separated by a distance of λ/10, and of width λ/20, admit a small portion of the radiation, forming a subwavelength source field distribution. (a) With no slab present, all subwavelength information is lost a short distance away from the slits. (b) With a positive index slab (ε=2.2), indicated by the continuous black lines, no subwavelength information is transmitted at the image plane (continuous white line). (c) A slab with ε=-1 and µ=-1 refocuses the field distribution from the object plane, including subwavelength information; however, unwanted surface modes appear on the slab surfaces. (d) (657 KB) Movie showing that the introduction of losses (ε”=µ”=0.001) damps the surface modes while retaining most of the resolution. [Media 7]

Fig. 5. Field intensity plots along the image plane after the slab. Black dashed curve: the object distribution. Gray curve: after insertion of a dielectric slab with ε=2.2. Black solid curve: after insertion of a slab with ε=-1+0.001i and µ=-1+0.001i. Green curve: after insertion of a slab with ε=-1+0.1i and µ=-1+0.1i. Red curve: after insertion of a slab with ε=+1+0.001i and µ=-1+0.001i.

Fig. 6. (a) A wave incident on a positive index (n=+3) converging lens with R=6 cm is focused to a spot 3 cm away. (b) Similarly, a wave incident on a negative index (n=-1, ε=µ=-1) concave lens with R=6 cm is also focused to a spot 3 cm away. The wavelength used in the calculation was λ=3 cm.