Negative Refraction Makes a Perfect Lens
Optics
2025-07-03 v1
Abstract
With a conventional lens sharpness of the image is always limited by the wavelength of light. An unconventional alternative to a lens, a slab of negative refractive index material, has the power to focus all Fourier components of a 2D image, even those that do not propagate in a radiative manner. Such super lenses can be realised in the microwave band with current technology and a version operating at the frequency of visible light, but at short distances of a few nanometres, can be realised in the form of a thin slab of silver as our simulations show.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2507.01682,
title = {Negative Refraction Makes a Perfect Lens},
author = {JB Pendry},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2507.01682},
year = {2025}
}