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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES, VOL. 55, NO. 12, DECEMBER 2007

A 3-D Isotropic Left-Handed Metamaterial

Based on the Rotated Transmission-Line
Matrix (TLM) Scheme
Michael Zedler, Christophe Caloz, Senior Member, IEEE, and Peter Russer, Fellow, IEEE

AbstractA 3-D isotropic left-handed metamaterial based

on the rotated transmission-line matrix (TLM) scheme is presented in this contribution. First, the discrete electrodynamics
theory of the rotated TLM scheme is briefly revisited. The corresponding 3-D metamaterial is analyzed in terms of its dispersion
relation, Bloch impedance, principal axes propagation, differential/common mode excitation, and composite right/left-handed
response. A practical realization of this 3-D metamaterial, based
on metalinsulatormetal capacitors and thin wires, is proposed
and experimentally demonstrated. A simplified planarized implementation, preserving the same network topology, is then
proposed with two alternative configurations. Parasitic effects
resulting from planarization are analyzed and design guidelines
are given to mitigate them. Finally, this structure is demonstrated
by a full-wave simulation to exhibit the expected 3-D-isotropic
left-handed behavior.
Index TermsComposite rightleft-handed (CRLH), isotropic,
left-handed, metamaterial, negative refractive index (NRI), transmission-line matrix (TLM), 3-D.

I. INTRODUCTION
METAMATERIAL is an electromagnetic structure exhibiting unusual material properties such as close-to-zero
or negative refractive index (NRI) [1], [2] first investigated by
Veselago [3]. A fundamental property of metamaterials is that
they cannot be realized by homogeneous materials and, hence,
they are composites exhibiting an internal structure [4].
So far, five different topologies for 3-D left-handed isotropic
metamaterials have been proposed: a finite-difference time-domain (FDTD)-derived structure independently proposed in
[5], [6], a structure derived from the rotated transmission-line
method (TLM) scheme [7], [8], a structure consisting of dielectric spheres [9], a 3-D extension of the wire/split-ring
approach [10], [11], and a straightforward extension of the
1-D/2-D composite rightleft-handed (CRLH) structure [12],
[13] supporting scalar waves that requires a common ground
across all unit cells. The latter was the first 3-D left-handed
metamaterial demonstrated experimentally. 3-D metamaterials

Manuscript received April 24, 2007; revised July 24, 2007.

M. Zedler and P. Russer are the Institute for High-Frequency Engineering,
Technical University of Munich, 80804 Munich, Germany (e-mail: Michael.
Zedler@mytum.de).
C. Caloz is with the Dpartement de Gnie lectrique, Poly-Grames Research
Center, cole Polytechnique de Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada H3C 3A7.
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TMTT.2007.909608

may be used in diverse applications such as spatial power combiners, antennas, radomes, quasi-optical devices, and imaging
systems. In addition, two futuristic applications were suggested
by Pendry: a perfect optical lens [14] and a cloaking device
[15]. While the validity of the perfect lens has been recently
questioned by Veselago [16], the cloaking device was verified
experimentally in [17].
This contribution is organized as follows. Sections II and
III-A recall the derivation of the rotated TLM metamaterial
[7], [8]. Section III-B discusses, for the first time, a simplified
schematic model describing waves propagating along a principal axis, allowing easier comparison with other metamaterials
based on lumped elements. Section III-C shows the original
result that rotated TLM metamaterials only support the desired
differential mode and that a parasitic common mode does not
exist. Section III-D recalls the behavior of the rotated TLM
metamaterial in the CRLH case, resulting in the novel analysis
of the effects of balanced resonance on the Bloch impedance.
Section IV presents the fabrication and measurement of the
metamaterial. Section V discusses a planar implementation that
preserves the network topology and that permits highly eased
fabrication. Parasitic effects resulting from planarization are
analyzed, and design guidelines are given to mitigate them.
Full-wave simulations verify the left-handed behavior of the
metamaterial.
II. DISCRETE ELECTRODYNAMICS
In the TLM representation of discrete electrodynamics, a
12-port scattering matrix, representing the TLM cell, contains
all of the information of the discretized Maxwells equations
[18][21]. If we consider that the field is discretized into cubic
cells and assume that the tangential electric and magnetic field
components are sampled at the center of each cube surface, this
yields 12 electric and 12 magnetic field components, which
may be represented by 12 incident waves with amplitudes
and 12 scattered waves with amplitudes
[19], [21], [22]. The circuit representation of the TLM cell may
be depicted by the 12-port which appears schematically drawn
.
in Fig. 1. It is represented by a scattering matrix
Assuming that the 12-port adheres to rotational and mirror
symmetries with respect to the - -, and -axes, has the
form

0018-9480/$25.00 2007 IEEE

(1)

ZEDLER et al.: 3-D ISOTROPIC LEFT-HANDED METAMATERIAL BASED ON ROTATED TLM SCHEME

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~ . The complete unit cell is

Fig. 2. Rotated TLM half unit cells implementing S
constituted by the merging of both half cells [7].

Fig. 1. General space-discretizing TLM 12-port [8].

with

(2)
Assuming matched ports
, a lossless node
and equal phase delay in all branches
, one obtains the two solutions

(3a)

Fig. 3. Representation of a 45 rotation of polarization by a transformer network.

(3b)
Equation (3b) describes a trivial node not connected to off axis
adjacent nodes and is thus not of further interest. Equation
(3a) describes a general space-discretizing cell, which is well
known as the symmetric condensed node TLM method. The
represents the phase delay experienced by a
phase
wave traveling through the TLM cell. The 12-port cell can be
by the
decomposed into two independent six-ports and
coordinate transformation [23], [22]
(4a)
(4b)

As an aside, it shall be noted that the rotation of polarization by 45 used in (4a) of each face of the space-discretizing
cube can be understood also from a network point of view using
ideal transformers, as shown in Fig. 3: two unrotated ports with
are transformed into the supolarizations/port voltages
which are the rotated port polarizaperposition
tions/voltages. Thus, from a circuit theoretical point of view, the
symmetric condensed-node TLM can be transformed into rotated TLM by means of transformer networks. In Section III,
it will be shown that a rotated TLM half cell can be implemented by a lumped-element network; therefore, together with
the aforementioned transformer network, the symmetric condensed-node TLM node can be represented using network circuits.
III. ANALYSIS OF THE ROTATED TLM METAMATERIAL

(4c)
A. Dispersion Relation and Bloch Impedance
This corresponds to a rotation of the polarizations by 45 , as
shown in Fig. 2. The transformed scattering matrix is given by
(5)
In this paper, the two independent half-cell six-ports described
cells, respectively. A TLM
by and
are called A and A
cell that completely samples the electromagnetic field can be
established by either nesting the six-port structures of the A and
half cells or by a cluster of eight half cells with alternating A
A
cells [22].
and A

An elementary metamaterial cell may be conceived on the

basis of rotated TLM cells by inserting reactances in series to
the six cell ports and four admittances connecting the series reactances at a central node forming a virtual ground [7]. Both
half cells can be connected at the virtual ground. The A-cell

is scattered by
scattering is described by whereas the A-cell
[see (4a)]. This sign inversion may be interpreted as a frequency-independent phase shifter of 90 attached to each port,
which is impractical for any physical realization. For this reason,
we consider a metamaterial structure containing solely A-cells.
In this case, referring to Fig. 1, a wave incident at port 1 is scattered into ports 5, 6, 9, and 10 instead of into ports 7, 8, 11, and

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES, VOL. 55, NO. 12, DECEMBER 2007

Fig. 4. Lumped-element model of a rotated TLM half unit cell implementing

the structure shown in Fig. 2. Shunt elements Y are shown in red (in online
version) for clarity, and series elements are denoted by Z .

12. This means that the polarization is changed from vertical to

horizontal after traversing the cell.
The lumped-element circuit for an A-cell is shown in Fig. 4
with the series elements
and shunt elements . The same
structure is depicted in Fig. 5(a) in a graphically flattened representation. The dispersion relation of a rotated TLM metamaterial consisting of only A-cells is [7]

(6)
are the phase shifts observed by a wave traversing
where

the cell along the - -, and -axes, respectively. If the A-cell

instead of ) were used for one of the half
(scattered with
cells, then the dispersion relation would read
. The Bloch
impedance of the rotated TLM cell equals that of the 1-D CRLH
cell [1] and may be shown to read [7] as
(7)
indicating that there is no angular dispersion, as (7) is indepenand .
dent of
B. Propagation Along the Principal Axes
By referring to Fig. 5(a), we seek the solution of propagation
along the -axis, which is obtained by expressing the periodic
boundary conditions along the - and -axes as
(8a)
(8b)
When
and are the incident and reflected wave amplitudes
at port , this yields

Fig. 5. Equivalent circuits for the rotated TLM 3-D metamaterial half unit cell.
(a) Implementation of A-cell. (b) Particularized circuit for the case of x axis
propagation following (8a)(9c). (c) and (d) Simplified equivalent circuit of (b).
is flipped.
Note that, in (c) and (d), port

where
denote the currents through the shunt elements , and the current flow in each is directed towards the
and are open circuit, ports
symmetry center. Hence, ports
and are shorted, and the shunt elements decouple. Following (8a)(9c), the equivalent circuit can be particularized to
Fig. 5(b) that can then be simplified into Fig. 5(c). Noting that
the impedance matrix of a T-circuit and a flipped T-circuit are
equal, a further simplification leads to Fig. 5(d). Interestingly,
for 1-D propagation, the circuit resembles that of the standard
1-D CRLH line, except that there are two T-circuits per unit cell
and a flip of sign at port .
The dispersion relation and Bloch impedance for the structure
depicted in Fig. 5(d) may be shown to agree with (6) and (7) for
, as expected.
C. Common-Mode Analysis

(9a)
(9b)
(9c)

While the ports in the network topology of Fig. 5 are fundamentally differential, this section examines the possible existence of a parasitic common mode.

ZEDLER et al.: 3-D ISOTROPIC LEFT-HANDED METAMATERIAL BASED ON ROTATED TLM SCHEME

Fig. 6. Topology of the rotated TLM metamaterial half unit cell for the
common mode. The node labels 1; . . . ; 16 correspond to the labeling scheme
in Fig. 5(a).

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Fig. 8. Dispersion diagram for the 3-D CRLH rotated TLM metamaterial for
the balanced-resonance case (solid line) and unbalanced-resonance (dashed
line) case. Red lines (in online version) represent metamaterial operation
behavior.

side in the rotated TLM case is simply the square of that in the
1-D CRLH case. This square yields two left-handed and two
right-handed bands, while the 1-D case has only one band of
each type. Apart from this fact, the properties of 1-D CRLH
structures remain, including the balanced/unbalancedresonance conditions
and their impact on the dispersion relation (gapless/gap transitions between bands) and Bloch impedance (frequency independency/dependency).
The four bands, which are obtained by inserting the CRLH
reactances into (6), are given by

(10a)
Fig. 7. CRLH rotated TLM metamaterial half unit cell. [7].

For the common mode, the potentials at nodes and

with
are equal, and all voltages are defined with respect to the potential at infinity. The circuit simplifies as follows:
all shunt elements are shorted, and the structure simplifies to
that shown in Fig. 6. The network in Fig. 6 only contains one
. A network with only one
type of element, denoted with
type of element does not support wave propagation: Assuming
consists of only inductors, then the lack of capacitors
that
forbids propagating waves at all frequencies. The nonexistence
of a common mode for other network elements representing
can be shown by frequency-transformation reasoning.
D. CRLH Behavior
In a CRLH unit cell, the impedance
is a series resonator
, whereas
is a parallel resonator
. The
account for unavoidable parright-handed components
asitics [1]. The corresponding unit cell for the rotated TLM
metamaterial is shown in Fig. 7.
Comparing the dispersion relation of (6) with that of a 1-D
, one notes that the left-hand
CRLH medium

(10b)
where
. The dispersion diagram is shown in Fig. 8 for
both the balanced- and unbalanced-resonance cases.
The consequence of the suppressed negative sign in the scat
tering matrix of the A-cell
(Section III-A) are: 1) the unbalanced-resonance gap of the dispersion diagram appears not at
the -point, as in the 1-D CRLH metamaterial, but between
the X and M points and 2) similarly, the frequency-independency of the Bloch impedance may be shown to exist not near
the -point but near the X/M-region. This second consequence
means that the Bloch impedance cannot be constant to first order
in the metamaterial frequency range (i.e., around the -point)
and that therefore the bandwidth of this 3-D rotated TLM metamaterial is restricted compared with 1-D CRLH metamaterials.
This is the price to pay for the simplification of the structure
cell. This behavior of the Bloch
avoiding phase shifters in the A
impedance is shown in Fig. 9: while for a balanced-resonance
1-D CRLH structure the -point corresponds to the frequency

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES, VOL. 55, NO. 12, DECEMBER 2007

Fig. 9. Bloch impedance of a CRLH rotated TLM metamaterial cell. Solid line:
balanced-resonance case (L C = L C ); dashed line: unbalanced-resonance case (L C = L C ). Crosses denote 0-point operation for a 1-D
CRLH structure, and dots denote 0-point operation of the CRLH rotated TLM
metamaterial.

Fig. 11. Intuitive explanation of the structure.

B. Intuitive Explanation of the Structure

Fig. 10. 3-D CRLH rotated TLM metamaterial realization. (a) A-type half unit
cells. (b) Complete 2 2 2 structure [8].

2 2

and there the Bloch impedance is flat, for

the 3-D CRLH rotated TLM metamaterial, this is not the case.
IV. REALIZATION OF THE ROTATED TLM METAMATERIAL
A. Description of the Structure
The proposed realization of the CRLH rotated TLM metamaterial, corresponding to the lumped-element network of Fig. 7,
is depicted in Fig. 10. Shunt inductors are implemented by wires
connected to a common center point, and series capacitors are
implemented by metalinsulatormetal (MIM) plates located
between adjacent unit cells. Fig. 10(a) shows the two half unit
cells in the proper orientation to be then nested. Fig. 10(b) shows
a cluster of 2 2 2 nested unit cells. Fig. 10(c) shows the
complete unit-cell prototype. The plate capacitors are realized in
PCB with patches on both sides of the substrate, which ensures
values. The inductors are realized by rigid wires.
accurate
The unit-cell length is 2 cm, the substrate is Rogers 4350B
nH and
10 mil, and the left-handed values are
pF.

The unit cell is a balanced structure: it has a virtual ground,

that is, a zero voltage point due to the symmetry of the structure
rather than due to physical connection to a physical ground. It
consists of two nested cells, which are the two cells shown in
Fig. 10(a). These two cells are electromagnetically decoupled in
the sense that they support electromagnetic waves of independent orthogonal polarizations in each of the directions of space,
and .
To gain better insight into the propagation phenomenon along
the structure, let us consider in some details the example of
-polarized ( -field along the
-direction) plane
a
(transverse) wave propagating along the -direction and incident on the structure at the level of a unit cell.
Consider the first A half cell [left-hand side of Fig. 10(a)],
which is displayed in Fig. 11. In this cell, the incident plane
and
)
wave produces a symmetric voltage difference (
between the two patches at the input face of the half cell [lefthand side of the structure in Fig. 10(a)]. These two patches form
capacitors with the patches printed on the opposite faces of the
thin substrate slabs, which store electric energy and provide
corresponding to negative
the required series capacitance
permeability. Due to these capacitors, the incident transverse
-field becomes locally longitudinal between the two plates of
the capacitors. The voltages at the plates inside the structure are
, where is the current flowing into the incident
port. From this point, the wave sees the wires environment.
Due to the symmetry of the structure and to the symmetrical
incident voltages, propagation is prohibited along the straight
-direction since the field is short-circuited at the center node
(virtual ground), which is consistent with the fact that the scatis zero in (5).
tering parameter
While rectilinear propagation is not allowed, off axis propagation occurs through the four lateral faces of the unit cell, along
the positive and negative - and -directions. Fig. 11 shows how
this is realized in the 3-D cell as a result of the differential voltages and symmetry of the structure that lead to the voltage difat the off axis ports. While the -field rotates toference
ward the four lateral faces in the unit cell, the magnetic flux circulates around the two wire branches extending from the corner
voltage points to the virtual ground point, which corresponds
to magnetic energy storage and generates the required shunt incorresponding to negative permittivity. Note that
ductance

ZEDLER et al.: 3-D ISOTROPIC LEFT-HANDED METAMATERIAL BASED ON ROTATED TLM SCHEME

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circuit of Fig. 5(a). Under this assumption, the behavior of the

entire structure can be inferred from the response of the single
unit cell.
is
The extraction procedure of the lumped elements
derived as follows: taking the six-port impedance matrix of the
ideal rotated TLM cell [7]

(11)

and terminating the four unconnected ports with

(12)
(13)
yields a symmetric two-port impedance matrix. This can be conwith the elements
verted to a scattering matrix normalized to

(14a)
Fig. 12. 3-D CRLH rotated TLM unit cell with its input and output baluns
required for the differential excitation of the measurement setup.

(14b)
Solving for

the directions of the fields indicated in Fig. 11 correspond to the

other four independent scattering parameters of (5).
Consider next the second A half cell [right-hand side of
-polarized -field
Fig. 10(a)]. In this cell, the incident
does not encounter any metallization at the input plane of the
cell, which is therefore transparent to it. The plates with the
same polarization at the output plane belong to the next A half
cell.
When many cells nested A are cascaded along the three directions of space, the plane wave macroscopically travels along
the structure along the -direction in a meandrous fashion from
the off axis cells, which constitutes the essence of the scattering-type propagation along the proposed rotated TLM structure.
C. Experimental Verification
Fig. 12 shows the unit-cell prototype of the CRLH rotated
TLM metamaterial. This prototype was measured with a
two-port vector network analyzer through baluns (microstrip to
parallel-strip transitions) connected at two arbitrary nonaligned
ports, while the remaining ports are terminated with
resistors. Note that this excitation appropriately models wave
propagation through the structure because the rotated TLM
structure is a network with well-defined ports. Upon the basis
of the rotated TLM metamaterial, it suffices to verify experimentally that the metamaterial cell indeed acts like the lumped

yields

(15a)
(15b)
(15c)
The scattering parameters are those obtained in the experiment.
Combining (15c) with (6) and assuming propagation along a
, yields the dispersion relation
principal axis, i.e.,

(16)
is depicted in
The extracted frequency dependency of
Fig. 13, showing fairly good agreement with lumped-element
simulations and thus verifying the assumption that the metamaterial cell acts like the intended lumped-element circuit. A
comparison of simulation and experimental data for the term
is shown in Fig. 14, showing excellent agreement
and further validating the lumped-element assumption for frequencies up to 2.2 GHz. The reason for the better agreement
of Fig. 14 compared with Fig. 13 is that (15c) is more robust

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES, VOL. 55, NO. 12, DECEMBER 2007

Fig. 16. Cross-sectional view of the planarized CRLH rotated TLM metamaterial.  : low permittivity;  : high permittivity h as thin as possible. Vertical
as small as possible. m denotes the
thick lines: buried via. Via distance d
metallization layers in the unit cell. If multiple cells are stacked, then the adjacent top and bottom layers m and m can be merged into one layer.

V. PLANARIZATION OF THE ROTATED TLM METAMATERIAL

Fig. 13. Lumped-element frequency dependency extracted from a measurement of the setup shown in Fig. 12. Solid line: measurements; dashed line: circuit simulator results using lumped elements only. (a) Extraction of Z . (b) Extraction of Y .

Fig. 14. Comparison of measured (solid line) and simulated (dashed line)
values for (1 + Z Y ). This term is the frequency-determining part of the
dispersion relation of the rotated TLM metamaterial.

Fig. 15. Dispersion diagram for propagation along a principal axis extracted
from a measurement of the setup shown in Fig. 12. Solid line: measurements;
dashed line: circuit simulator results using lumped elements only.

compared with (15a)/(15b). As the term

is the frequency-determining part of the rotated TLM metamaterial [see
(6)], the dispersion diagram depicted in Fig. 15 shows also good
agreement with circuit simulation results up to 2.2 GHz. The expected two left-handed and two right-handed frequency bands
are clearly visible, therefore verifying the behavior of the rotated TLM metamaterial.

A. Description of the Structure

Fabrication of the 3-D rotated TLM metamaterial presented
in the previous section is very challenging. The structure is not
connective and hence would not hold together without dielectric support. Moreover, the selective metallization requirement
is pending to be solved with 3-D rapid prototyping techniques.
To overcome these difficulties, we propose a planar realization
of the structure preserving its network topology.
Fig. 16 shows the cross-sectional view of the planarized
rotated TLM metamaterial cell. Fig. 17(a) shows the correand
at the bottom
sponding metal layers. The layers
and top correspond to the patches in the cell corners in Fig. 10.
is identical with layer
of the overlying cell. Each
Layer
and
, respectively, is
of the four patches of the layers
continued into the four neighboring cells at every corner. These
patches produce the capacitive coupling with the neighboring
and
. In the layers
and
cells via the patches of layers
, the strips are connected to the patches with insets which
increase the inductance. Together with the through-connections
and , these strips produce the required
through layers
inductive coupling. The vertical capacitive coupling is achieved
(where the
through two series capacitances
prime denotes the next unit cell). In-plane capacitive coupling
.
is achieved through two series capacitances
An alternative configuration requiring no MIM patches is depicted in Fig. 17(b). Here, the vertical capacitive coupling is
. The in-plane capacitive coupling is achieved with
. In addition to the advantage
interdigital capacitors
of requiring less layers per unit cell, this configuration also alleviates fabrication tolerances with respect to dielectric layer
are merged into one layer.
thicknesses, as the two layers
and
of the vertical
This advantage comes at a cost; both
plate capacitors and the in-plane interdigital capacitors need to
be carefully matched.
B. Parasitic Coupling Due to Planarization
While ideally the network topology of Figs. 1620 should
equal that of Fig. 5(a), unwanted capacitive coupling

ZEDLER et al.: 3-D ISOTROPIC LEFT-HANDED METAMATERIAL BASED ON ROTATED TLM SCHEME

Fig. 18. Top view of layer m =m of 2

Fig. 17(a).

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2 2 cells of the structure depicted in

Fig. 19. Top view of layer m =m of 2

2 cells of the structure depicted
in Fig. 17(a). Coupling patches provide the series capacitive coupling between
in-plane adjacent cells.

with

Fig. 17. Exploded top view on the different metal layers for the structure of
Fig. 16. (a) MIM capacitor implementation (b) Interdigital capacitor implementation.

(18)

needs to be considered. Such parasitic effects couple the

otherwise independent two half cells, as shown in Fig. 21.
In order to obtain the dispersion relation, we first calculate
the impedance matrix of the 12-port by setting up Kirchhoffs
equations. One obtains
(17)

(19)

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Fig. 20. Top view of layer m =m of 2

Fig. 17(b).

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES, VOL. 55, NO. 12, DECEMBER 2007

2 2 cells of the structure depicted in

Fig. 22. Dispersion diagram to (21) for a balanced-resonance CRLH unit cell
X, black represents propawith (L =L = 1) and Y Z = (1=5). For 0
gation along , red (in online version) represents propagation along  , and green
(in online version) represents propagation along  . For 0
M, black represents propagation along the  =  , red (in online version) represents propagation along  =  , and green (in online version) represents propagation along
 = .

TABLE I
UNIT CELL DIMENSIONS FOR THE PLANARIZED CELL, AS SHOWN IN FIG. 17(a)

Fig. 21. Planarized unit cell consisting of two nested A cells with parasitic
coupling Y .

Fig. 23. Numerical calculation of the dispersion diagram of the planarized unit
cell for 0
X along the x-axis. Solid lines: CST MWSs JacobiDavidson
eigenmode solver; dashed lines HFSS eigenmode solver. Red lines (in online
version): left-handed band. Every 10 sampled.

Applying to the coupled half cells the Floquet ansatz [19]

the nontrivial solution of

sion relation

(20)

in

and gives the disper-

(21)

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Fig. 24. Electric field distribution for  = (1=6);  =  = 0 for the left-handed mode (see Fig. 23).

In the limiting case

, the dispersion relation of the planarized rotated TLM metamaterial reduces to that of (6), as expected.
The dispersion diagram corresponding to (21) for a balancedand
is
resonance CRLH unit with
plotted in Fig. 22. The isotropic behavior around the -point
and
are produced
is approximately maintained. As both
by plate capacitors (Fig. 16), a reasonable corresponding design
guideline is
(22)
with respect to Fig. 16. In order to satisfy (22), several interdependent conditions need to be met, given as follow:
[1];
1) unit cell size
plus via diameter need to be small com2) via distance
pared with the unit cell size;
through the achievable aspect
3) via diameter is related to
ratio, but (22) needs to be fulfilled;
and
needs to
4) thickness of the thin dielectric layers
have very small tolerances in order to assure good control
.
over
While 4) can be overcome by using interdigital capacitors as
shown in Fig. 17(b) instead of coupling plates, the design of such
a balanced-resonance CRLH unit cell is more challenging (see
and
of the vertical plate capacitors
Section V-A); both
and the in-plane interdigital capacitors need to be matched.
C. Numerical Calculation of the Dispersion Relation
Numerical results of the planarized 3-D rotated TLM structure were calculated for a planarized structure with coupling
using CST MWSs JacobiDavidson eigenpatches in
mode solve and Ansoft HFSSs eigenmode solver. The unitmm, and the dielectrics are
cell edge length is

mm
mm
. The structures dimensions are taken as shown in Table I. The dispersion diagram
along the axis is shown in Fig. 23, displaying
for
good agreement between CST MWS and Ansoft HFSS. The
lower right-handed mode is a perturbed plane-wave mode that is
not described by the network model. It corresponds to artificial
dielectrics as described in [24]. The left-handed mode, corresponding to the lower left-handed mode of Fig. 8, is clearly visible. The electric field distribution of the left-handed mode for
is shown in Fig. 24. The high confinement
of the electric field in the plate capacitors proves the assumption
of lumped-element behavior and, accordingly, the homogeneity
requirement of metamaterials as well as the low impact of the
for the simulated configuration.
parasitic capacitance
VI. CONCLUSION AND OUTLOOK
A 3-D isotropic left-handed metamaterial based on the rotated TLM scheme was presented. First, the discrete electrodynamics theory of the rotated TLM scheme was briefly revisited. The corresponding analysis of the 3-D metamaterial
was recalled in terms of its dispersion relation and CRLH response. For the first time, the impact of unbalanced resonance
on the Bloch impedance, differential/common-mode excitation,
as well as principal axes propagation were discussed, the latter
yielding a 1-D ladder network analogy.
A practical realization of this 3-D metamaterial, based on
MIM capacitors and thin wires, was proposed and demonstrated
experimentally. A simplified planarized implementation, preserving the same network topology, was proposed with two
alternative configurations. Parasitic effects resulting from
planarization are analyzed, and design guidelines are given
to mitigate them. Finally, this structure was demonstrated by
a full-wave simulation to exhibit the expected 3-D-isotropic
left-handed behavior.

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES, VOL. 55, NO. 12, DECEMBER 2007

While current fabrication of 3-D metamaterials remains a challenge,theplanarizedstructurepresented in thispapermayprovide

a solution for practical 3-D metamaterials in the near future.

[22] P. Russer, The alternating rotated transmission line matrix (ARTLM)

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ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank N. Yang, cole Polytechnique de Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada, for assistance with
the measurements.

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Michael Zedler received the Dipl.-Ing. degree in

electrical engineering from the RWTH Aachen University of Technology, Aachen, Germany, in 2002,
and is currently working toward the Dr.-Ing. degree
at the Institute of High-Frequency Engineering,
Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany.
His research interests include chip-integrated antenna design, periodic structures, and metamaterials.
Mr. Zedler was the recipient of the Honorable
Mention Prize presented at the 2007 IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (IEEE
MTT-S) International Microwave Symposium (IMS) Student Paper competition.

Christophe Caloz (S99M03SM06) received

the Diplme dIngnieur en lectricit and Ph.D.
degree from the cole Polytechnique Fdrale de
Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1995
and 2000, respectively.
From 2001 to 2004, he was a Post-Doctoral
Research Engineer with the Microwave Electronics
Laboratory, University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), where he conducted research on
microwave devices, antennas and systems, photonic
bandgap (PBG) structures, and electromagnetic
metamaterials. In June 2004, he joined the Dpartement de Gnie lectrique,
cole Polytechnique de Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada, where he is currently
an Associate Professor, a member of the Poly-Grames Research Center, and
the Holder of a Canada Research Chair (CRC) entitled Future Intelligent
Radio-frequency Metamaterials (FIRMs), associated with a novel Canadian
Foundation for Innovation (CFI) infrastructure. He is also the Holder of the
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
Strategic Project Grant Novel Ultra-Wideband (UWB) Front-End Transceiver
Systems. He has authored or coauthored 200 technical conference, letter, and
journal papers, among which 35% were invited papers (over 45% of conference
papers). He holds several patents. He authored the first unified textbook on
metamaterials, entitled Electromagnetic Metamaterials: Transmission Line
Theory and Microwave Applications (IEEE Press, 2005). He has also authored
three book chapters. He was the Guest Editor of the MarchApril 2006 Special
Issue on Metamaterials of the International Journal for Numerical Methods
(IJNM). He is a member of the Editorial Board of the IJNM, the International
Journal of RF and Microwave Computer-Aided Engineering (RFMiCAE),
and Metamaterials. He also serves as a reviewer for Applied and Wireless
Components Letters, Electronic Letters, the Journal of Applied Physics,
Applied Physics Letters, the Journal of Optics, the New Journal of Physics,
and other international periodicals. His current research interests include novel
metamaterials for millimeter-wave and optical applications, nonlinear and
active devices, thin-film/bulk ferroelectric and ferromagnetic components,
UWB systems, terahertz technology, and numerical methods.
Dr. Caloz is a member of the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (IEEE MTT-S) Technical Coordinating Committee (TCC) MTT-15 and
the chair of the Commission D (Electronics and Photonics) of the Canadian
Union de Radio Science Internationale (URSI). He serves as a reviewer for
many journals including the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND
TECHNIQUES, the IEEE MICROWAVE AND WIRELESS COMPONENT LETTERS,and
the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION. He has participated in 15 courses, tutorials, and workshops around the world over the past
three years. He has organized several focused sessions and workshops at international conferences. He was the Technical Program Committee (TPC) chair
of the International Symposium of Signals, Systems and Electronics (ISSSE),
cole Polytechnique de Montral, July 30August 2, 2007. He was the recipient of the 2007 IEEE MTT-S Outstanding Young Engineer Award. In March
2004, he was the recipient the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA)
Chancellors Award for Postdoctoral Research.

ZEDLER et al.: 3-D ISOTROPIC LEFT-HANDED METAMATERIAL BASED ON ROTATED TLM SCHEME

Peter Russer (F89) received the Dipl.-Ing. and Dr.

techn. degrees from the Vienna University of Technology, Vienna, Austria, in 1967 and 1971, respectively, both in electrical engineering.
In 1971, he joined the Research Institute,
AEG-Telefunken, Ulm, Germany. Since 1981, he
has been a Professor and Head of the Institute for
High Frequency Engineering, Technical University
of Munich, Munich, Germany. From 1992 to 1995,
he was the Director of the Ferdinand-Braun-Institut,
Berlin, Germany. From 1997 to 1999, he was Dean
of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology,
Technical University of Munich. He has authored or couathored 600 scientific
papers in refereed journals and conference proceedings. He has been a member
of the Editorial Board of several international journals. His current research
interests are electromagnetic fields, numerical electromagnetics, metamaterials,

2941

integrated microwave and millimeter-wave circuits, statistical noise analysis

of microwave circuits, time-domain measurement methods in electromagnetic
compatibility (EMC), and methods for computer-aided design of microwave
circuits.
Dr. Russer is a member of the German Informationstechnische Gesellschaft
(ITG) and the German as well as Austrian Physical Societies. From 1999 to
2002, he was co-chair ,and from 2002 to 2005, chair of the URSI Commission D. He was a member of the Technical Program Committees and Steering
Committees of various international conferences. He was the recipient of the
Distinguished Educator Award of the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques
Society (IEEE MTT-S) in 2006. In October 2006, he was elected as a member
into the Council for Technical Sciences of the Union of German Academies of
Sciences and Humanities. He was the recipient of the 1979 Nachrichtentechnische Gesellschaft (NTG) Award.