Excitation of guided waves in layered structures with negative refraction

Abstract

We study the electromagnetic beam reflection from layered structures that include the so-called double-negative metamaterials, also called left-handed metamaterials. We predict that such structures can demonstrate a giant lateral Goos-Hänchen shift of the scattered beam accompanied by a splitting of the reflected and transmitted beams due to the resonant excitation of surface waves at the interfaces between the conventional and double-negative materials as well as due to the excitation of leaky modes in the layered structures. The beam shift can be either positive or negative, depending on the type of the guided waves excited by the incoming beam. We also perform finite-difference time-domain simulations and confirm the major effects predicted analytically.