Composites of resonant dielectric rods: A test of their behavior as metamaterial refractive elements

We report numerical experiments of optical wave propagation in composites of high refractive index dielectric rods at frequencies where their first electric and magnetic Mie resonances are excited. The arrays of these particles have been extensively studied and proposed as non-absorbing and isotropic metamaterials. We show that negative refraction, observed in such ordered particle arrays, is due to diffraction and that an effective medium theory (EMT) yields constitutive parameters that do not reproduce the observations in these composites, whose transmission also depends on the sample shape. This is further confirmed by disordering the arrays, a case in which large transmission losses appear due to extinction by resonant scattering from the particles. Therefore, these composites, although having little absorption, give rise to large extinction due to scattering and do not constitute an improvement, as low loss refractive elements, upon all previously designed highly absorbing metamaterials.

► We do optical wave transmission numerical tests in sets of resonant dielectric rods.
► Negative refraction observed in these composites is due to Bragg diffraction.
► Constitutive parameters of effective medium theories do not reproduce observations.
► These composites have big losses due to energy extinction by resonant scattering.
► They are as lossy refractive elements as previously designed metamaterials.