Preface of the “Metamaterials”

Abstract

The range of structures capable of supporting surface waves has been expanded due to the invention of metamaterials with controllable electric and magnetic properties. One of the key concepts of the physics of artificial composites (or metamaterials) for electromagnetic waves is the possibility to describe their properties by effective parameters derived under the assumption that the structural elements of such a metamaterial are much smaller than the radiation wavelength. Anisotropic metamaterials is one outstanding class of metamaterials. It is interesting to notice that its material parameters are not scalars but tensors, with different values of the principle components. Due to this fact, the solutions of the dispersion relations possess elliptic or hyperbolic shapes. The outstanding properties of such anisotropic metamaterials are as follows: negative refraction, super-resolution in the far-field through image magnification, and enhanced spontaneous emission. Thus, the goal of this Symposium is to describe the properties of different metamaterials. For instance, periodic metal-dielectric nanostructures open the wide avenues for applications. In addition, a lot of investigations have been done in the field of anisotropic metamaterials, both experimentally and theoretically.