Enhancement of microwave imaging using a metamaterial lens

Microwave far-field imaging techniques are well suited to image source, scatterers, and anomalies in dielectric or composite materials. However, the diffraction limits restrict the resolution of far-field imaging. This contribution focuses on the feasibility of designing a metamaterial lens based sensor for enhancing the resolution of microwave far-field imaging. Metamaterials have been increasingly used in the past few decades for the designing of novel microwave circuits and sensor systems. The unique properties of metamterials offer several advantages, such as sub-wavelength nature, compact design, and super-resolution, which is not found in the conventional materials. The feasibility of enhancing imaging resolution using a metamaterial lens along with time reversal processing of far-field microwave data is studied in this paper. Specifically, the super-resolution capability of the lens for detection of sub wavelength defects inside the composite materials is presented. © 2001-2012 IEEE.