Discontinuous design of negative index metamaterials based on mode hybridization

An electric inductor-capacitor (ELC) resonator provides a series of electrical resonances and a pair of ELC resonators leads to the split of each resonance into two modes, i.e., magnetic and electric modes, corresponding to antisymmetric and symmetric current distributions. With the meticulous design of the ELC resonator, we can achieve a negative index metamaterial through mode hybridization by overlapping the first electric resonance mode and the second magnetic resonance mode. Such non-connected designs may offer opportunities to achieve three-dimensional negative index metamaterials.