Taming spatial dispersion in wire metamaterial

Abstract

Thin wire structures are commonly used as ‘metamaterials’ for simulating the negativeelectrical response of a plasma. In this they are only partially successful: transversemodes are convincingly reproduced but problems arise from highly dispersivelongitudinal modes which can be excited by externally incident radiation and impair thevalidity of the simple local plasma model. We show how modified designs canessentially eliminate the longitudinal dispersion and restore the simple local model.