Ray-tracing technique and imaging properties by a PC slab with n eff =-1

Abstract

In recent years, negative refractive media as the representation of new electromagnetic medium has become the front and the very popular researching field, and the production of the flat lens is one of its major applications. In our study, the imaging behaviors by two-dimensional photonic crystal slabs have been investigated systematically. We suggest a ray-tracing technique to discuss the action of photonic crystal slab with negative refraction. The propagation of electromagnetic waves in two-dimensional hexagonal lattice photonic crystal slab is investigated through dispersion characteristics analysis and numerical simulation of field patterns. Imaging and focusing with effective negative refractive index of -1 have been observed in these systems for both polarized waves, that is TE- and TM-polarized point source be considered simultaneously. Based on the exact finite-difference time-domain method to perform numerical simulation and physical analysis, we have demonstrated that the two-dimensional photonic crystal we designed can realize nearly perfect imaging with TM-polarized point source in the near field and far field, and the results are consistent with the ray-tracing technique quite well, while to TE-polarized point source the imaging is not perfect although it have neff=-1 in the same direction.