ARBITRARY LOSS FACTORS IN THE WAVE PROPAGATION BETWEEN RHM AND LHM MEDIA WITH CONSTANT IMPEDANCE THROUGHOUT THE STRUCTURE

We investigate the wave propagation properties in lossy structures with graded permittivity and permeability involving left-handed metamaterials. An exact analytic solution to Helmholtzʹ equation for a lossy case with both real and imaginary parts of permittivity and permeability profile, changing according to a hyperbolic tangent function along the direction of propagation, is obtained. It allows for different loss factors in RHM and LHM media. Thereafter, the corresponding numerical solution for the field intensity along the composite structure is obtained by means of a dispersive numerical model of lossy metamaterials that uses a transmission line matrix method based on Z-transforms. We present the expressions and graphical results for the field intensity along the composite structure and compare the analytic and numerical solutions, showing that there is an excellent agreement between them.