Resonant transparency of materials with negative permittivity

Abstract

It is shown that the transparency of opaque material with negative permittivity exhibits resonant behavior. The resonance occurs as a result of the excitation of the surface waves at slab boundaries. Dramatic field amplification of the incident evanescent fields at the resonance improves the resolution of the the sub-wavelength imaging system (superlens). A finite thickness slab can be totally transparent to a \textit{p}-polarized obliquely incident electromagnetic wave for certain values of the incidence angle and wave frequency corresponding to the excitation of the surface modes. At the resonance, two evanescent waves have a finite phase shift providing non-zero energy flux through the non-transparent region.