Analysis of a Veselago lens in the quasistatic regime

Abstract

The resolution of conventional optical lenses is limited by the wavelength. Materials with a negative refractive index have been shown to enable the generation of an enhanced resolution image where both propagating and nonpropagating waves are employed. We analyze such a Veselago lens by exploiting some exact one-dimensional integral expressions for the quasistatic electric potential of a point charge in that system. These were recently obtained by expanding that potential in the quasistatic eigenfunctions of a three-flat-slabs composite structure. Numerical evaluations of those integrals, using realistic values for physical parameters like the electric permittivities of the constituent slabs and their thickness, reveal some surprising effects: For example, the maximum concentration of the electric field occurs not at the geometric optics foci but at the interfaces between the negative permittivity slab and the positive permittivity slabs. The analysis provides simple computational guides for designing such structures to achieve enhanced resolution of an optical image.