Controlling plasmon hybridization for negative refraction metamaterials

The hybridization scheme of plasmon modes in cut-wire-based left-handed metamaterials is shown to critically depend on the coupling between paired cut wires. We show that an inverted hybridization scheme obtained with an asymmetric alignment of paired cut wires is the most appropriate to negative refraction. This is validated (numerically and experimentally) by the first demonstration of negative refraction in the microwave domain using only periodic ensembles of cut wires.