FDTD modeling of an artificially synthesized absorbing medium

In this letter we investigate an artificially synthesized absorbing medium by using the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) and waveguide simulation techniques. The artificial medium comprises a doubly periodic array of loss y electrical and magnetic media (i.e., an epsilon-only and mu-only checkerb oard) and we compute its reflection coefficient for normal and oblique angl es of incidence. It is demonstrated that, if properly designed, the reflect ion characteristics of the checkerboard are far superior to those of a unif orm material of the same thickness with epsilon = mu.