Loss and back-coupling effects on subwavelength imaging of three-dimensional superlens

The loss and back-coupling effects on the subwavelength imaging of three-dimensional superlens are reported in this paper. The loss is added in the image region of a superlens. The back-coupling effects are considered by adding a shielded layer above the object region. (1) By adding loss in the image region, the long range plasmon mode is drastically suppressed. (2) The back-coupling shield above the objects has the effects of amplifying the higher spatial frequency components while suppressing the long range plasmon mode. Because of (1) and (2), the transfer function becomes flatter. Subsequently, the finer resolution of images is obtained. This is confirmed by the field and intensity distribution generated by the horizontal magnetic dipoles and vertical electric dipoles located in the object region and the image intensity distributions of the patterned mask structures in the lithography.