Towards a systematic design of isotropic bulk magnetic metamaterials using the cubic point groups of symmetry

Abstract

In this paper, a systematic approach to the design of bulk isotropic magnetic metamaterials is presented. The roles of the symmetries of both the constitutive element and the lattice are analyzed. For this purpose, it is assumed that the metamaterial is composed of cubic split ring resonators (SRRs) arranged in a cubic lattice. The minimum symmetries needed to ensure an isotropic behavior are analyzed, and some particular configurations are proposed. Besides, an equivalent circuit model is proposed for the considered cubic SRRs. Experiments are carried out in order to validate the proposed theory. We hope that this analysis will pave the way to the design of bulk metamaterials with strong isotropic magnetic response, including negative permeability and left-handed metamaterials.