Lateral beam shift at transmission through layered structures with negative index material

Abstract

We studied electromagnetic wave transmission through layered structures that include negative index materials. The excitation of leaky guided modes leads to the formation of anomalous lateral shifts in the reflected beam with a double-peak structure and in the transmitted beam with a single-peak structure. In the absence of losses, we demonstrate that the total transparency (i.e. zero reflection) of the slab waveguide with the negative index material can be achieved under conditions in which high reflectivity is normally expected. We demonstrate the trade-off effect between the high transmission and the high lateral shift. This peculiar effect exists not only for the pure TE or the pure TM polarization of the obliquely incident radiation, but also under certain circumstances for both of them simultaneously i.e. for the nonpolarized radiation.