Experimental observation of evanescent-wave amplification and propagation in microwave regime

Surface plasmon can lead to wave propagation not only along the surface as a dielectric waveguide but also in the normal direction to the surface because of the evanescent-wave amplification by metamaterial. In this letter, the authors design a surface plasmon structure to implement the electric and magnetic plasma resonances in microwave regime. Near the plasma resonant frequency, they directly observe the strong surface plasmon by experiments. The evanescent waves can be transmitted in an exponentially increasing and decreasing distribution, which is the evanescent-mode propagation by the tunneling effect.