Metamaterials

I'm sure people have heard about the recent developments in metamaterial technology (involving the invention of microwave cloaking devices and superlenses that defeat the diffraction limit) and I have read up on them, but cannot understand exactly how they work.

I was wondering if anyone could explain, in simple terms, but with correct science, how these things work. I understand that it's something to do with the split ring resonator (SRR) arrays interacting with the electromagnetic radiation in a similar way to an LC-Oscillator, thus driving its permeability below zero, but I would like to know exactly how this happens and what it means to have negative permeability and permittivity (and how this phenomenon occurs).

Any help would be much appreciated.

Originally posted by TheRenegade
I'm sure people have heard about the recent developments in metamaterial technology

I sure haven't.

I don't know anything about metamaterials, nor could I understand anything from the reading at the site I provided for you but maybe it can help you?

en.wikipedia.org...

nvrmd misunderstanding.

[edit on 30-11-2006 by sardion2000]

Originally posted by 1Crisis
I don't know anything about metamaterials, nor could I understand anything from the reading at the site I provided for you but maybe it can help you?

en.wikipedia.org...

Thanks...I had checked there. And in case you wanted to know what it was all about, metamaterials are basically a new kind of material that interact with light and other electromagnetic radiation in interesting ways - they've been used recently for two pretty major breakthroughs:
1) to construct a "superlens" which beats the diffraction limit. This basically means it's a lens that allows you to see things that are smaller than the wavelength of light. That's pretty damn small.
2) to create a cloaking device, which curves radiation around an object and then allow the radiation to emerge on the other side as if the object wasn't there. True invisibility is getting closer. Of course it'll go straight to the military first, but who knows? One day we could have ugly factories cloaked so that they aren't such eyesores on the landscape.

Anyway, I still would appreciate any explanation anyone can give as to how these materials actually pull off the feats they do. Have searched through google and found plenty, although unfortunately my scientific knowledge is hardly of undergrad standard, so much of it is lost on me - could anyone explain in practical layman's terms?