Ultra-compact chiral metamaterial with negative refractive index based on miniaturized structure

An ultra-compact chiral metamaterial with thin thickness and small unit cells is proposed. Echelon meandered conjugated gammadions are introduced into the planar miniaturized design. In particular, the ratio between period (p) and resonant wavelength (λ) is as small as 1/10.8 in experiment. Negative refractive indexes for circularly polarized waves are demonstrated and the effective parameters are retrieved. The effects of the length of the swing arms, number of folded lines and dielectric layer thickness on the optical activity have also been investigated. This miniaturized structure has great potential application in electronic and photonic devices with small size and integration.