Negative Refraction Makes a Perfect Lens

JB Pendry

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arXiv · 2507.01682

Negative Refraction Makes a Perfect Lens

JB Pendry

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Abstract

With a conventional lens sharpness of the image is always limited by the wavelength of light. An unconventional alternative to a lens, a slab of negative refractive index material, has the power to focus all Fourier components of a 2D image, even those that do not propagate in a radiative manner. Such super lenses can be realised in the microwave band with current technology and a version operating at the frequency of visible light, but at short distances of a few nanometres, can be realised in the form of a thin slab of silver as our simulations show.

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JB Pendry. 2025-07-02. Negative Refraction Makes a Perfect Lens. https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.01682

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