Volumetric negative-refractive-index metamaterials based upon the shunt-node transmission-line configuration

A volumetric negative-refractive-index transmission-line (NRI-TL) metamaterial is presented. This structure constitutes a natural extension of the planar NRI-TL metamaterials1 and maintains the desired features of broad bandwidth and low transmission loss. Unlike their planar counterparts, the proposed volumetric NRI-TL metamaterials can effectively couple incident plane waves from free space. The proposed topology can be readily made by stacking layers that are individually fabricated using standard multilayer printed-circuit board techniques at microwave frequencies. However, the creation of the volumetric structure results in the presence of a parasitic parallel-plate mode. This mode can interfere with the desired backward wave mode of the metamaterial, causing a stop band to appear. To facilitate the rapid analysis of this new design, a multiconductor transmission line model was developed. Through the use of this model and full-wave simulations, it will be demonstrated that this unwanted parallel-plate mode can be eliminated by properly arranging the vertical inductive loading wires. Using this process, it will be shown that a properly designed inductive load can result in a practical NRI metamaterial slab which is matched to free space over a large bandwidth (22%) and with low insertion loss (<−1 dB). This approach can also be used to design NRI-TL metamaterials with backward wave dispersion bandwidths of over 140%.