On the impedance matching of left-handed materials to free-space

Halim Boutayeb (1) , Ke Wu (1) , Kouroch Mahdjoubi (2)

1 EPM - École Polytechnique de Montréal
2 IETR - Institut d'Electronique et de Télécommunications de Rennes

Using an original approach, this work shows that the characteristic impedance, as it is usually de¯ned, is negative for a left-handed medium (LHM) and a method to match left-handed media to free space is proposed. A full-wave technique is used to validate our analysis and proposed scheme. Our work is not in contradiction with previous studies on left-handed media and does not mean that the LHM is active, but we explain why one can encounter di±culty in simulating the excitation by an electromagnetic wave of an interface air/LHM if the LHM is considered homogeneous and we show that it is possible to excite the forward wave of a left-handed medium instead of the backward wave as it is usually done.

Mots clés: Left-handed media; characteristic impedance; homogenization; backward wave; negative impedance

Domaines: Electromagnétisme

Halim Boutayeb, Ke Wu, Kouroch Mahdjoubi. On the impedance matching of left-handed materials to free-space. Metamaterials for Secure Information and Communication Technologies, May 2008, Marrakesh, Morocco. pp.07 May, 14h. ⟨hal-00267983v1⟩