Serbia,Ni,October5- ,2011 8 TELSIKS2011

Next-Generation Metamaterials
for Unprecedented Microwave Systems
Christophe Caloz
Abstract This paper presents what, in the vision of the
author, will be next-generation metamaterials for microwave
systems. For this purpose, it rst introduces some fundamentals
on metamaterials and describes the different types of currently
existing metamaterial structures, called micro-scale metamate-
rials, in reference with their typical smallest dimension. Upon
this basis, it presents a few micro-scale metamaterial properties,
structures and principles, from the popular negative index of
refraction, via various dispersion-engineered devices, to a very re-
cent non-reciprocal magnet-less metamaterial. After pointing out
the limitations of micro-scale metamaterial, the paper introduces
next generation metamaterials, namely multi-scale metamaterials,
which incorporate nano-scale and atomic-scale structures and
substances. For the nano-scales, it presents the example of
ferromagnetic nanowire metamaterials and their applications,
while for the atomic scale it describes recent innovations in
ferrite based structures, including a uniform waveguide CRLH
leaky-wave antenna and a perfect electromagnetic conductor
wall, as well as most recent graphene-based structures and
devices. Finally, a tri-scale structure, incorporating a graphene
atomic-scale, ferromagnetic wire nano-scale and a metasurface
micro-scale is discussed. In conclusion, the paper suggests that,
although technology is eminently unpredictable, the wealth of
novel properties of metamaterials augurs a long and lasting
impact of this area.
Index Terms Metamaterials, resonant particle (RP) metama-
terials, transmission line (TL) metamaterials, composite right/left-
handed (CRLH) structures, negative refraction, articial non-
reciprocity, dispersion engineering, ferromagnetic nanowires
(FMNWs), micro-/nano-/atomic-scale metamaterials, graphene-
based metamaterials, multiscale metamaterial.
I. FUNDAMENTALS OF METAMATERIALS
A. Denition and Origin
Metamaterials are broadly dened as articial effectively
homogeneous electromagnetic structures with unusual proper-
ties not readily available in nature [1]. They owe their effective
response to the sub-wavelength dimension p of their average
unit cell, or period if the structure is periodic, i.e. to the
fact that p
g
, where
g
is the guided wavelength in the
material.
Metamaterials may be seen as successors of articial di-
electrics, pioneered by Bose [2], Lindman [3], Kock [4], Cohn
[5], and Rotman [6], with novel and extended properties.
Due to their great promises, metamaterials have generated
vast amounts of research and development over the past decade
[1], [7], [8], and their scientic and technological potentials
seem far from being exhausted.
Author is with Department of Electrical Engineering,

Ecole
Polytechnique, Montr eal, QC, Canada H3T 1J4, E-mail:
christophe.caloz@polymtl.ca
B. Properties
When electromagnetic waves propagate in an effective
medium, such as a metamaterial, they are essentially myopic
to the ne lattice structure of the medium. They only probe
an average, or effective, response of the articial particles
or molecules of the structure. This response is then well
characterized in terms of macroscopic constitutive parameters,
which are, in general, the permittivity dyadic

, the permeabil-
ity dyadic

and the cross-coupling dyadics

and

, via the
constitutive relations [9], [10]
D =

(, k, r, |E|, |H|) E+

(, k, r, |E|, |H|) H, (1a)

B =

(, k, r, |E|, |H|) E+

(, k, r, |E|, |H|) H. (1b)
Metamaterials, in conjunction with emerging micro- and
nano-technologies, represent new opportunities to tailor these
constitutive parameters so as to produce unique properties for
unprecedented electronic devices. Specically, metamaterials
may exhibit the following features and properties:
double negative permittivity and permeability, corre-
sponding to negative refraction;
temporal frequency () dependent parameters, leading to
temporal dispersion engineering;
spatial frequency (k) dependent parameters, leading to
spatial dispersion engineering;
space (r) dependent parameters, leading to graded media,
allowing transformation electromagnetics;
eld intensity (|E| or/and |H|) dependent parameters,
leading to non-linear effects, such as shock waves, soli-
tons, harmonic generation, and parametric amplication;
anisotropic (dyadic) parameters, as required for instance
for non-reciprocal gyrotropy;
bi-isotropy, with non zero

and

parameters, leading to
chirality and Tellegen responses;
bi-anisotropy, corresponding to a combination of the two
previous situations;
parameters governed by quantum effects, for novel phe-
nomena and devices in the realm of electromagnetic
science and microwave engineering.
These properties and possibilities, and their combinations,
are virtually unlimited. They have already lead to many inno-
vations and they are expected to produce further breakthroughs
in the near future.
The constitutive relations (1) are of such a level of generality
that all metamaterials are necessarily particular cases of a
hypothetical metamaterial that would combine all the corre-
sponding properties. Therefore, the remainder of the paper
necessarily deals with metamaterials exhibiting only some of
the properties in (1).
978-1-4577-2019-2/11/$26.00 c 2011 IEEE 3
II. TYPES OF CURRENT METAMATERIALS
A. Lorentz Dispersion
In order to understand some of the most fundamental
properties of metamaterials, we will rst restrict our attention,
in this section, to isotropic metamaterial structures, for which

and

reduce to scalars and

and

are zero in (1). Despite

this restriction, the following discussions also hold for more
complex metamaterial structures under specic polarizations.
To ensure causality, the constitutive parameters of meta-
materials as those of all physical electromagnetic media
must satisfy Kramers-Kronig relations. This requirement
generally leads to the following Lorentz frequency-dispersive
model for the permeability () =

and permittivity
() =

[11]:
_
()
()
_
=
_

0
_
_
_
_
_
1
N

n=1

2
p
{

}
,n

2
r
{

}
,n
j
{

}
,n
_
_
_
_
,
(2)
where the sum over n accounts for the N resonances of the
material, and where, for each n
th
resonance and for both and
,
p
is the plasma frequency,
r
is the resonance frequency,
and is the damping factor.
Equations (2) are quite general. Most metamaterials typi-
cally exhibit a small number of resonances (in their effective
frequency range), as we shall see next with the most popular
two current types of metamaterials, the resonant particle (RP)
and the transmission line (TL) metamaterials.
B. Resonant Particle (RP) Metamaterials
Figure 1 shows typical RP metamaterials, developed near
the beginning of the century [12]. They are constituted of
conductive thin wires (or strips) and split ring resonators.
When the electric eld is parallel to the wires and the magnetic
eld is perpendicular to the plane of the rings, the permittivity
and permeability follow the Lorentz dispersive response in (2),
particularized to
() =
r

0
_
1

2
p

2
r
j

_
, (3a)
() =
r

0
_
1

2
p

2
j

_
, (3b)
where the different parameters are naturally functions of the
ring and wire parameters [1], [12]. For this polarization,
electric and magnetic dipole moments are microscopically gen-
erated in the wires and the rings, respectively.Macroscopically,
these moments produce electric and magnetic polarizations,
which yield the constitutive parameters (3). Note that such
a RP metamaterial is magnetically resonant, due to its ring
resonators, but electrically non-resonant, as its wires are typi-
cally much shorter then the resonant wavelength or effectively
innite in parallel-plate waveguide structures. Due to their
magnetic resonance and corresponding absorption peak, RP
(a)
x
y
z
(b)
(c)
Fig. 1: Resonant particle metamaterials, made of thin wires and
split ring resonators: (a) 1D (polarization-wise) structure, (b) 2D
structure, (c) 3D structure
metamaterials are typically narrow-band and highly lossy.
They are also bulky and unpractical for most microwave
applications.
C. Transmission Line (TL) Metamaterials
In reaction to the aforementioned limitations of RP meta-
materials, TL metamaterials were introduced in 2002, indepen-
dently by Caloz and Itoh [13], Iyer and Eleftheriades [14] and
Oliner [15]. TL metamaterials have lead to many microwave
component and antenna applications, and some of them are
now mature for commercial products.
Due to causality, TL metamaterials are fundamentally com-
posite right/left-handed (CRLH) in nature, exhibiting a left-
handed (or backward-wave) response at low frequencies and a
right-handed (or forward-wave) response at high frequencies
[1], as we shall see below. Fig. 2 shows examples of 1D,
2D and 3D CRLH metamaterial structures. Many other im-
plementations are possible, especially for the 1D case, where
all standard microwave technologies (stripline, CPW, CPS,
coaxial, waveguide, etc.) are applicable.
The propagation along a given direction in a CRLH meta-
material can be modeled by the 8-parameter unit cell lumped-
element circuit shown in Fig. 3. This model essentially exhibits
a series capacitance C
L
and a shunt inductance L
L
[left-
handed (LH)], corresponding to negative permeability and
negative permittivity, respectively, but also includes a series
inductance L
R
and a shunt capacitance C
R
[right-handed
(RH)] associated with the magnetic and electric uxes, re-
spectively, intrinsic to any transmission line structures, and
4
Fig. 2: Examples of CRLH metamaterial structures: (a) 1D
(interdigital/stub microstrip), (b) 1D (metal-insulator-metal/stub
microstrip), (c) 2D (interdigital/via microstrip), (d) 3D
(metal-insulator-metal/wire)
Fig. 3: Circuit model for the unit cell of a CRLH TL metamaterial
structure with RH parameters (L
R
, R
R
, C
R
, G
R
) and LH
parameters (C
L
, G
L
, L
L
, R
L
). A d-dimensional (d = 1, 2, 3)
metamaterial structure of size
d
= (Np)
d
is formed by periodically
repeating a cell of this type N times in d directions
corresponding to positive permeability and permittivity, respec-
tively. In addition to these four reactive parameters, one has the
conventional lossy parameters R
R
and G
R
(RH), and the lossy
parameters G
L
and R
L
(LH), which account for the dielectric
loss associated with C
L
and the ohmic loss associated with L
L
,
respectively, and which mostly represent radiation in antenna
applications
1
.
The Lorentz parameters in (2) for a CRLH TL metamaterial
[1] may be determined by mapping Maxwell equations onto
TL equations. This leads to the relations
1
The model of Fig. 3 may not be able to capture all the electromagnetic
effects occurring in complex CRLH structures. For instance, 1D and 2D
planar structures may experience coupling with substrate modes, requiring
the addition of transformer circuit elements, and 3D structures of the type
shown in Fig. 2(d) exhibit a double CRLH band [16], requiring the extension
of the dispersive model to a double-Lorentz model.
() =
r

0
_
1

2
p

2
j

_
, (4a)
() =
r

0
_
1

2
p

2
j

_
. (4b)
with

r
=
L
R

0
p
,
p
=
1

L
R
C
L
,
r
= 0,

=
G
L
C
L
, (5a)

r
=
C
R

0
p
,
p
=
1

L
L
C
R
,
r
= 0,

=
R
L
L
L
, (5b)
in addition to which the RH permeability and permittiv-
ity loss terms
R
= j(R
R
L
R
)/(L
R
p) and
R
=
j(G
R
C
R
)/(C
R
p), respectively, must be appended to the
corresponding expressions of (2). It appears in (4) that a CRLH
metamaterial is non-resonant, since it exhibits neither electric
nor magnetic parameter poles.
Note that these relations may be established directly from
Maxwell equations. This may be easiest seen by considering
the 2D CRLH structure of Fig. 2(c) in the limiting case of
digits of zero length (and lossless for simplicity), where the
structure reduces to a simple mushroom-type structure, with
patches of dimensions aa and gap capacitance C
L
supported
by vertical vias of height h and inductance L
L
. In this
case, Maxwell-Faraday and Maxwell-Amp` ere equations allow
to model the shunt inductances by electric dipole moments
p

= Eh
2
/(
2
L
L
) and the series capacitances by mag-
netic dipole moments p

= Ha
2
/(
2

0
C
L
), respectively.
From the corresponding electric and magnetic polarizations,
P

= p

/(p
2
h) and P

=
0
p
m
/(p
2
h), on obtains the electric
and magnetic responses D =
h
+P

and B =
h
+P

, where
the subscript h refers to the host material parameters, which,
noting that C
R
=
h
p
2
/h and L
R
=
h
p
2
h/a
2
, directly lead
to (4) and (5).
A CRLH metamaterial is a bandpass type structure and the
above relations are valid only over the restricted effective fre-
quency range of its pass-band. The exact broadband dispersion
relations are obtained by applying Bloch-Floquet theory, which
leads to the following propagation and impedance expressions
[1]

B
=
B
+j
B
=
1
p
cosh
1
_
1 +
ZY
2
_

= j

, (6a)
Z
B
= Z
Br
+jZ
Bi
=

Z
Y

1 +
ZY
4

, (6b)
with the immittances given as Z() = jL
R
+R
R
+
1
jC
L
+G
L
and Y () = jC
R
+G
R
+
1
jL
L
+R
L
. From these relations, the
constitutive parameters, which are meaningful only in the ef-
fective frequency range, may be retrieved as = j
B
Z
B
/
and = j
B
/(Z
B
).
When the magnetic and electric plasma frequencies (which
are also the series and shunt resonant frequencies, respectively,
5
as seen in Fig. 3) are equal,
p
=
p
, the above relations
take the explicit CRLH form [1]

B
=
1
p
cosh
1
_
1
1
2
_
_

_
2
+
__

B
p0
() =

,
(7a)
Z
B
= Z
L

_
1
1
4
_
_

_
2
+
_

B
p0
Z
c
() = Z
L
= Z
R
,
(7b)
where the effective innitesimal-limit results were ob-
tained by Taylor series approximations. In these expressions,

R
= 1/

L
R
C
R
,
L
= 1/

L
L
C
L
, Z
L
=

L
L
/C
L
, and
= (R, G) is a loss term that is much smaller than each of
the R, G-independent terms. According to these results, when

p
=
p
=
0
, which is called the balanced resonance
condition, the spectral gap otherwise separating the LH and
RH branches of the dispersion curve (), closes up ( = j,
= 0 and Z
B
R for all s in the lossless case), due to the
mutual cancelation of the two resonances
p
and
p
[1].
The dispersive relations for the Bloch-Floquet complex
propagation constant
B
() and impedance Z
B
() of a bal-
anced CRLH metamaterial are plotted in Figs. 4(a) and 4(b),
respectively. The following observations, related to previous
explanations, are inferred from this graph: i) the structure is
LH ( < 0) at frequencies below the electric/magnetic plasma
frequency f
0
and RH ( > 0) above this frequency; ii) due
to the balanced design, the transition between the LH and
RH branches is continuous and a non-zero group velocity
(v
g
= /) is achieved at the LH-RH transition frequency
f
0
(if
p
=
p
, a stop-band separates the LH and RH bands);
iii) the CRLH pass-band is sandwiched between two stop-
bands, where grows quickly; iv) the structure is matched
to Z
0
(Z
r
Z
0
) over a fairly broad bandwidth.
D. Connection between RP and TL Metamaterials
RP and TL metamaterials are often thought radically differ-
ent. In fact, they are qualitatively similar and only quantita-
tively different. Comparing the RP and CRLH (TL) dispersion
relations, given by (3) and (4), respectively, it appears that
the two types of metamaterials exhibit the same constitutive
parameters, except for the fact that
r
= 0 in the CRLH case.
This may be understood by resorting again to the simplied
CRLH mushroom structure with the help of Fig. 5.
In the RP metamaterials, the wire and ring particles are
sufciently distant from each other to experience negligible
coupling. Therefore, the dispersion parameters of the overall
material can be determined from the electric and magnetic
dipole moments (p

and p

) of a unique cell, as illustrated in

the left-hand side of Fig. 5, where the wire has been folded
at its two extremities, as often done in dipole antennas for
compactness. When the folded wires and rings are brought
in close proximity to one another, as shown in the center of
(a)
(b)
Fig. 4: Dispersive Bloch-Floquet response for a balanced CRLH
metamaterial (Fig. 2) with the parameters
(L
R
= L
L
, C
R
= C
L
, R
R
= R
L
, G
R
= G
L
) = (2.5, 1, 1, 1) (nH,
pF, , mS) and Z
0
= 50 . The corresponding material parameters
in Eq. (5), for a period of p = 3 mm, are
r
= 0.66,

r
= 37.65, f
p
= f
p
= f
0
= 3.18 GHz,
m
/
0
= 0.05 and

e
/
0
= 0.02. The yellow regions indicate the stop-bands. (a)
Normalized complex propagation constant,

B
/k
0
=
B
/k
0
+ j
B
/k
0
, computed by Eq. (7a) (b) Normalized
impedance, Z
B
/Z
0
= Z
Br
/Z
0
+ jZ
Bi
/Z
0
, computed by Eq. (7b)
Fig. 5, they become strongly electrically (capacitively) and
magnetically (inductively) coupled, respectively, due to their
inversion symmetry. The right-most mutation in Fig. 5 shows
that the coupled folded wires and rings, which can provide
only < 0 and < 0 when isolated, both transform into a TL
metamaterial when their mutual couplings are strong enough.
Thus, TL metamaterials are the limit case of RP metamaterials
with strongly coupled particles [17].
III. MICRO-SCALE METAMATERIALS
This section describes a few microwave metamaterials made
of dielectric and conductor inclusions with dimensions in the
order of 10 m to 1 cm. We loosely refer to them as micro-
6
Fig. 5: Relation between RP and TL metamaterials. The dash-dotted line in the middle of the folded wires indicate an electric symmetry
plane.
scale metamaterials, in reference to their smallest possible
dimensions.
A. Negative Refraction
Negative refractive index (NRI) metamaterials have been
the rst modern metamaterials [12] and they have generated
a huge amount of research. Negative refraction is a very
new phenomenon, that was even believed impossible by many
people until massive theoretical and experimental evidence has
been reported in the years following 2000.
Negative refraction is a phenomenon that occurs when the
permittivity and the permeability of a medium are simulta-
neously negative. This may be easily seen by inserting a
plane wave, e
jkr
, into Maxwell equations, which yields
k E = H and k H = E. When < 0 and
< 0, we have = || and = ||. Upon substitution
of the last two relations into the previous two relations, one
nds that (E, H, k) builds a left-handed triad (hence the term
left-handed), and the phase propagates backwardly, in the
direction of opposite to that of power, which is given by the
Poynting vector, S = EH. Hence, k is negative with respect
to the direction of S, and therefore the refractive index is
negative, n = k/k
0
< 0.
Figure 6 shows a NRI CRLH slab and the corresponding
measured near-eld patterns, evidencing focusing near the
center of the slab [18]. Such a NRI slab may achieve sub-
wavelength focusing [19], or simply power focusing, which
may nd medical applications, for instance in hyperthermia
treatment.
Recent advances on graded-parameter metamaterials has led
to the general concept of transformation electromagnetics [20],
where the ow of an electromagnetic wave may be molded
at will using non-uniform and anisotropic structures. In the
sense that they offer unprecedented control of electromagnetic
waves, and despite the fact that they are essentially a gener-
alization of graded-index bers or Luneburg lenses, graded-
parameter metamaterials may be considered as extensions of
NRI metamaterials. They may also be considered as spatial
PPWG
PPWG
CRLH
Fig. 6: Mushroom-type CRLH metamaterial slab, producing
negative index of refraction in its LH frequency range, placed
between two RH parallel-plate waveguide structures and hence
producing energy focusing
frequency engineered media, since they are characterized by
locally varying wave vectors.
B. Temporal Dispersion Engineering
In addition to spatial frequency engineering, metamaterials
offer unprecedented possibilities for temporal dispersion engi-
neering, where the phase versus frequency response may be
manipulated in various fashions, within the limits imposed by
causality [21].
For the purpose of doing temporal dispersion engineering,
we expand the dispersion relation in (7a) in Taylor series
around a center frequency
c
(representing any frequency
in the effective frequency range around the electric-magnetic
plasma frequency
0
), which yields, using the rst relation of
(7a),
() b
0
+b
1
(
c
) +
b
2
2
(
c
)
2
, b
q
=
d
q
()
d
q

=
c
,
(8a)
7
with
b
0
=
cos
1
_
1

c
2
_
p
, b
1
=

2
R

2
L

3
c
p sin(b
0
p)
, b
2
=
1

2
R
+
3
2
L

4
c
p sin(b
0
p)
,
(8b)
where
c
= (
c
/
R

L
/
c
)
2
. Eq. (8a) is valid over the
frequency range where
c
, which is an excellent
approximation across the entire effective frequency range of
a typical CRLH structure. The coefcients b
0
, b
1
(b
1
= v
1
g
)
and b
2
represent the phase velocity (PV) parameter, the group
velocity (GV) parameter, and the group velocity dispersion
(GVD) parameter, respectively. Effective-range approxima-
tions for the parameters given in (8b) are readily obtained
from the second relation of (7a) as b
0
=
c
/
R

L
/
c
,
b
1
= 1/
R
+
L
/
2
c
and b
2
= 2
L
/
2
c
. The parameter
b
0
governs the response to narrow-band signals, while the
parameters b
1
and b
2
permit the manipulation of pulses.
Dispersion engineering may consist in manipulating any of
the parameters b
0
, b
1
and b
2
. Examples for the three levels of
dispersion are given in [21].
An example for PV (b
0
, phase engineering) is that of CRLH-
CRLH and CRLH-RH coupled-line couplers, known to offer
uniplanar high coupling without bandwidth compromise [1],
[22]. In the former case, the desired coupling is achieved
by setting the b
0
of the two CRLH coupled lines to zero,
while in the latter case case, it is achieved by setting b
0
to

RH
, where
RH
is the phase constant of the RH line.
Other popular applications of metamaterial PV dispersion
engineering include multi-band operation, enhanced bandwidth
and miniaturization, which apply to many microwave passive
and active components and systems.
As an example for GV (b
1
, group delay engineering) con-
sider the real-time spectrum analyzer depicted in Fig. 7 [23].
This device is based on the temporal frequency to spatial
frequency mapping (or spectral decomposition to use the
language of prisms) provided by CRLH leaky-wave antennas
[24]. This mapping corresponds to the scanning law =
sin
1
(/k
0
), which holds in the fast-wave region (horizontal
shaded band in Fig. 4(a). The different temporal frequencies
of the input pulse to analyze are radiated in different di-
rections, where they are picked up by small detectors and
time-monitored by diodes, so as to construct, row by row,
the signals spectrogram. This is fundamentally a GV system
because (although most often we also have b
2
= 0), it is
the b
1
term that makes /k
0
a function of frequency, and
hence allows pulse decomposition. This device, most useful for
the time-frequency characterization of non-stationary signals
(e.g. EMC, EMI, biological, UWB, etc.), is purely analog,
and hence does not suffer from the speed and bandwidth
limitations of its purely digital counterparts. Other applications
of metamaterial GV dispersion engineering, in addition to
adaptive lters and tunable pulse delay lines, include dis-
persion compensators, real-time frequency discriminators, true
time delayers and tunable pulse generators.
Finally, as an example for GVD (b
2
, group velocity dis-
persion engineering), one may consider the pulse-position
modulator reported in [25]. In this case, a periodic pulse train
Fig. 7: Leaky-wave antenna based real-time spectrum analyzer: (a)
System schematic, (b) Spectrogram example
is mixed with a carrier with frequency depending on the bit to
code via a voltage controlled oscillator. The resulting mixed
signal is passed through a CRLH line, and the pulses are
delayed by different amounts, corresponding to their carrier
frequencies. This provides the time position modulation of the
pulse (e.g. an early pulse within a time frame represents a 0
while a late pulse represents a 1). Other recent applications of
metamaterial GVD dispersion engineering include frequency
discriminators and compressive receivers, real-time Fourier
transformers, temporal Talbot tunable pulse generator and
spatio-temporal Talbot imaging systems.
C. Novel Non-Reciprocal Magnetless Metamaterial
Ferrites exhibit unique non-reciprocal properties, which
makes them ubiquitous in microwave components and sys-
tems. However, they suffer from severe limitations: 1) they
require impractically high biasing static magnetic elds beyond
10 GHz, 2) they exhibit intrinsic losses scaling proportionally
with frequency, 3) they are bulky, because of the biasing
magnet, and 4) they are incompatible with integrated circuits.
We recently invented a non-reciprocal metamaterial which
does not suffer of these drawbacks while exhibiting the essen-
tial properties of ferrites [26]. This metamaterial is depicted
in Fig. 8. Its particles are pairs of split ring resonators hosting
a eld effect transistor in their gap. The transistor, due to its
unilateral semiconductor response, allows the induced wave
to ow only along one azimuthal direction along each rings.
As a consequence, as illustrated in the gure, a local radial
rotating magnetic eld is established between the rings. This
eld, macroscopically, operates as a magnetic dipole moments,
and mimics the moments associated with spins in ferrites. This
leads to the same anisotropic permeability dyadic. As a result,
the metamaterial provides the same properties as ferrites, in-
cluding Faraday rotation for perpendicular incidence and eld
displacement for in-plane propagation. Many related devices
will be presented in forthcoming reports, and it is expected
that this metamaterial may nd wide industrial applications.
8
J
H
FETs
Fig. 8: Non-reciprocal gyrotropic ring metamaterial structure
IV. NEXT-GENERATION METAMATERIALS
A. Limitations of Micro-Scale Metamaterials
We call micro-scale metamaterials, which are of the type de-
scribed in the previous section and which have been developed
over the past decade, rst-generation metamaterials. First-
generation metamaterials have led to many innovative con-
cepts and devices. However, they often suffer from important
limitations, such as scattering and diffraction loss, complexity
of fabrication, and limited electromagnetic properties. The
next-generation of metamaterials will most likely overcome
these limitations by the judicious incorporation of deeper
and multiple structural scales, including the nanometer and
atomic scales instead of, or in addition to, the micrometer
scale of rst-generation metamaterials based on moderately
sub-wavelength resonators. Next-generation metamaterials will
thus incorporate various ingredients, including most recently
discovered materials, as illustrated in Fig. 9.
B. Multi-Scale Metamaterials
Several of the ingredients in Fig. 9 will be combined to
form multi-scale metamaterials. This concept is illustrated in
Fig. 10. A metamaterial-based microwave device (a surface
wave antenna using a perfect NRI collimator for maximal
directivity in Fig. 10) may include several scales. The largest
scale is the micro-scale, made of small resonators, as described
in the previous section. These resonators may be embedded
within a medium of a smaller scale, typically a nano-scale, as
for instance the ferromagnetic nanowire medium, which will
be discussed in the next section. Each of these wires may be
composed of nanodisks, providing yet an additional scale level.
Finally, some of the nanodisks may be made of functional
materials, such as ferromagnetic substances, which exhibit
spin activity at the atomic scale. The combination of two or
more of these scales in a multi-scaled metamaterial naturally
provides maximal degrees of freedom to tailor the constitutive
parameters in (1), and hence achieve unprecedented properties
for novel devices and systems.
The next two sections discuss a few nano-scale and atomic-
scale metamaterial structures, and enumerate some of their
applications, to illustrate the potential of multi-scale metama-
terials.
Fig. 10: Multi-scale metamaterial concept. A multi-scale
metamaterial may include two or more distinct structural scales,
including the micro, the nano and the atomic scales.
Fig. 11: Ferromagnetic nanowire (FMNW) metamaterial
V. NANO-SCALE METAMATERIALS
A. Ferromagnetic Nanowire (FMNW) Metamaterials
Over the past decade, much research has been performed
on novel ferromagnetic nanowire (FMNW) metamaterials. A
recent review on the topic is available in [27]. A FMNW
metamaterial and some of its features are depicted in Fig. 11.
This material consists of an array of ferromagnetic nanowires,
possibly alternating magnetic and non-magnetic nanodisks, in
an alumina membrane. It exhibits a number of useful proper-
ties, including safe microwave homogeneity, magnet-less oper-
ation (self-biased structure), millimeter-wave capability, circuit
integrability, a controllable double-ferromagnetic resonance
and engineerable static anisotropy. FMNW metamaterials are
obtained by a simple and low-cost double-stage process, which
consists in rst anodizing an aluminum plate so as to obtain
a nanoporous alumina membrane and next electrodepositing
ferromagnetic substance into the pores of this membrane.
B. FMNW Metamaterial Classical and Quantum Applications
Several applications have already been demonstrated in
FMNW metamaterials [27]. The most obvious were circula-
tors, isolators and isolators, as counterparts of conventional
ferrite components. Moreover, a double-band edge-mode isola-
tor, exploiting the recently discovered ferromagnetic resonance
9
Fig. 9: Ingredients for next-generation metamaterials.
[28], was reported in [29]. Double resonance is obtained
here by operating the magnetic metamaterial off-saturation,
along a minor hysteresis curve, at remanence (for avoiding
the requirement of a magnet), as shown in Fig. 11.
In addition to these classical devices, novel structures and
components exploiting quantum electrodynamic effects are
currently considered. An example of such effects is the spin-
torque phenomenon where, from spin conservation through
alternating magnetic and non-magnetic layers, a frequency-
tunable RF signal may be generated from a DC current or,
conversely, an RF signal may be detected (rectied) [27].
Nanodisk FMNW metamaterials inherently constitute a 3D
array of such spin-torque generators or detectors. Thanks to the
mutual enhancement provided by mutual couplings between
the different torque elements, strong power enhancement is ex-
pected, and unique active metamaterials might be subsequently
developed in future.
Note that FMNW metamaterials maybe considered as bi-
scale metamaterials, since they support spin activity at the
atomic level, in addition to their other properties due to the
nano-scale nature of their wires and disks.
VI. ATOMIC-SCALE METAMATERIALS
A. Ferrite-based Metamaterial-Like Structures
Although they have been known and extensively applied for
many decades, ferrites, which might be considered as atomic-
scale materials due to their spin-based properties, seem to still
offer opportunities for novel metamaterial-like materials and
devices.
As an example, one may cite the open ferrite-loaded rect-
angular waveguide leaky-wave antenna reported in [30]. This
structure, although perfectly uniform, exhibits an automatically
balanced CRLH dispersion relation, as a consequence of the
anisotropic nature of the ferrite combined with the specic
waveguide structure which is hosting it. Consequently, it
may be used in several CRLH components, including the
celebrated CRLH full-space scanning leaky-wave antenna [1],
[24]. Moreover, it offers two additional features of further
interest: it is non-reciprocal, which allows novel integrated
antenna-duplexer systems [31], and it may also provide xed-
frequency beam steering by variation of the bias eld via an
electromagnet. The ferrite might be replaced soon by FMNW
metamaterials with the aforementioned benets they offer.
Another example of novel ferrite metamaterial-like concept
is that of the grounded-ferrite perfect electromagnetic con-
ductor (PEMC) boundary wall depicted in Fig. 12 [32]. On
such a wall, which is a generalization of a PEC or PMC
wall, it is a linear combination of the tangential electric and
magnetic elds which vanish. This novel concept, theoret-
ically introduced by Lindell and Sihvola [33], has a rich
application potential. The ferrite implementation of Fig. 12
is its rst reported practical implementation. This grounded-
ferrite structure, depicted in the left-hand side of the gure,
achieves PEMC by exploiting Faraday rotation and reversal of
the electric eld only on the ground plane. This wall may be
10
conventional
PEMC
Fig. 12: Grounded-ferrite perfect electromagnetic conductor
boundary wall and application to a TEM hollow waveguide
used to design transverse electromagnetic (TEM) rectangular
waveguides, without the restriction of a cutoff frequency, as
illustrated in the right-hand side of the gure.
B. Graphene Material and Applications
Graphene is a new, perfectly 2D (1 atom thick), material
with unprecedented electronic, mechanical and thermal prop-
erties. Its electronic properties are based on its exotic linear and
gap-less band structure, and include ballistic electron transport,
ambipolarity and the half-integer quantum Hall effect [34].
These properties have led to transistors with record f
T
and
various novel electronic devices.
Recently, it was discovered that graphene also supports
a giant Faraday rotation effect, despite the virtually zero
thickness of the material [35]. This discovery has paved the
way for a host of super-compact gyrotropic and non-reciprocal
devices, such as gyrators, isolators, non-reciprocal radomes,
and even graphene-based PEMCs.
Figure 13 highlights some features and properties of
graphene, that may be used in conjunction with metamaterials.
Graphene is characterized by a 2D conductivity tensor

,
which enriches the constitutive relations, (1) by Ohm dyadic
relation
J =

() E. (9)
The reason why conductivity is a tensor may be intuitively
understood by considering the central part of Fig. 13. When
graphene is biased by a static magnetic eld, B
0
, the electrons
on it, agitated by thermal uctuations, experience a Lorentz
force and consequently follow cyclotron orbits, which are
perfect circles at the cyclotron frequency,
c
= qB
0
/m

,
where m

is the electrons momentum-based mass. When an

electric eld, either from an applied voltage or from an incident
electromagnetic wave, is applied along one direction, the
electrons experience an additional Coulomb force along this
direction, and their trajectories are subsequently deformed into
elliptical orbits. These orbits naturally generate corresponding
currents. Thus, an electric eld polarized along one direction
-e
p
t
B
0
Fig. 13: Graphene material and its recently discovered
non-reciprocal properties
induces currents along two orthogonal directions, and hence
the conductivity is a tensor,

.
Moreover,

has a very rich and complex temporal fre-
quency dispersion,

=

(). In general, it follows the Kubo
formula [34], which accounts for valence-conduction intra-
band and inter-band transitions. However, in the typical mi-
crowave situation where 2
c
, the dispersion simplies
to a Drude form, similar to the Lorentz form but with zero
resonance frequency. It has been found that, as a consequence,
graphene exhibits a huge bandwidth, typically covering all
the microwave and millimeter spectrum, up to 1 THz [35]!
The Faraday rotation angle is perfectly constant across this
incredibly wide bandwidth. This is in sharp contrast with the
Lorentz-type narrow-band response of conventional ferrites,
and this unique property presages potential breakthroughs in
the forthcoming years.
The top left part of Fig. 13 shows a graphene sheet biased
by a static electric eld or voltage. From the ambipolar nature
of graphene, the direction of Faraday rotation can be revered
by simply reversing the voltage, as this allows a change of
carriers from electrons to holes, or the other way around,
depending on the initial band. The bottom left part of Fig. 13
shows a Faraday rotator, which may by used as a gyrator,
obtained by placing a graphene sheet in the cross-section of a
circular waveguide. The bottom right part of the gure shows
the propagation of an edge mode along a graphene strip, which
may be used for edge-mode isolators or non-reciprocal phase
shifters.
In order to magnetically bias graphene, for gyrotropy, a mag-
net would be required, with all its bulkiness, non-integrability
and parasite drawbacks. Using a FMWN metamaterial as a
magnet is a topic under current investigation in our group.
Graphene could be potentially deposited on this magnet, which
would be transparent to electromagnetic waves. This will lead
to an interesting bi-scale material, with the FMNW nano-scale
and the graphene atomic-scale, and interesting physics and
potential novel phenomena are anticipated form this structure.
11
Moreover, we are currently devising transparent electrodes
for the electric biasing of graphene. We anticipate that such
electrodes will be 2D micro-scale structure. The stacking
of atomic-scale graphene sheet with its nano-scale magnetic
biasing material and micro-scale electric biasing material will
represent a unique tri-scale metamaterial structure.
VII. CONCLUSIONS
Heinrich Hertz once said: I do not think that the wireless
waves I have discovered will have any practical application.
Such an erroneous prediction by such a brilliant mind indicates
that the future of metamaterials, as that of all technologies,
is hard to predict. However, the wealth of novel properties
and possibilities they offer, some of which were discussed in
this paper, suggests that this area will produce a strong and
lasting impact on electromagnetic science and technology in
the forthcoming decades.
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