W-band Pancharatnam half-wave plate based on negative refractive index metamaterials

Electromagnetic metamaterials, made from arrangements of subwavelength-sized structures, can be used to manipulate radiation. Designing metamaterials that have a positive refractive index along one axis and a negative refractive index along the orthogonal axis can result in birefringences, Δn>1. The effect can be used to create wave plates with subwavelength thicknesses. Previous attempts at making wave plates in this way have resulted in very narrow usable bandwidths. In this paper, we use the Pancharatnam method to increase the usable bandwidth. A combination of finite element method and transmission line models was used to optimize the final design. Experimental results are compared with the modeled data.