Enhancement of resolution in electromagnetic imaging of lossy dielectric objects using a slab of left-handed material

Abstract

In this paper, we make use of the special physical characteristics of novel artificial left-handed materials (LHM) to realize the super resolution. One of the most attractive features of LHM is the amplification of evanescent waves. Using such a feature, it has been shown that strong surface waves can be excited near the boundaries of LHM slab with small loss. We investigate the possibility to enhance the resolution of dielectric objects using the LHM slab. The Born approximation has been used to solve the linearized inverse scattering problem. Numerical simulations show that better resolution can be achieved when the LHM slab is involved than those without the LHM slab. The study has demonstrated that the amplification of evanescent waves in the measurement data and inversion algorithm is the main reason for the super resolution