Metamaterial with randomized patterns for negative refraction of electromagnetic waves

Artificial metamaterials made to date are all periodic in structure. Here we show that by randomizing contour patterns deposited lithographically on circuit board materials, a metamaterial characterized by a constitutive relation with negative constitutive parameters is produced in solid-state form. We clearly demonstrate the phenomenon of negative refraction to show that it is not produced by periodicity. This underlines the importance of using constitutive relations for media characterization in electromagnetic theory and suggests that metamaterials could be realized with composite materials or fabricated with various techniques by using versatile hosting materials. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.