All-angle collimation of incident light in μ-near-zero metamaterials

Abstract

We use the theory of inhomogeneous waves to study the transmission of light in μ-near-zero metamaterials. We find the effect of all-angle collimation of incident light, which means that the vector of energy flow in a wave transmitted to a μ-near-zero metamaterial is perpendicular to the interface for any incident angles if an incident wave is s-polarized. This effect is similar to the all-angle collimation of incident light recently found through a different theoretical framework in ε-near-zero metamaterials for a p-polarized incident wave [S. Feng, Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 193904 (2012)]. To provide a specific example, we consider the transmission of light in a negative-index metamaterial in the spectral region with a permeability resonance, and show that all-angle collimation indeed takes place at the wavelength for which the real part of permeability is vanishingly small.