Patent ID: 7482727

Claim:
A composite material exhibiting at least one of a negative effective permittivity and a negative effective permeability for incident radiation at an operating wavelength, comprising: a dielectric layer generally parallel to a dielectric layer plane; and a first plurality of nanowire pairs disposed in said dielectric layer, each of said first plurality of nanowire pairs comprising substantially parallel conductive nanowires of short length and separation relative to said operating wavelength; wherein each of said first plurality of nanowire pairs is substantially coplanar with a first plane substantially parallel to said dielectric layer plane, and said first plurality of nanowire pairs forms a first pattern within said first plane characterized by nanowire pair locations and nanowire pair orientations within said first plane, and wherein said first pattern comprises a first regularly-spaced array of commonly oriented nanowire pairs and forms a second regularly-spaced array of nanowire pairs that is interspersed with said first regularly-spaced array of nanowire pairs and commonly oriented in a direction substantially perpendicular to said first regularly-spaced array of nanowire pairs.