Near-field enhanced imaging by a magnetized ferrite slab -: art. no. 023505

This letter demonstrates the near-field imaging enhancement at microwave frequencies of two-dimensional sources by a ferrite slab magnetized to saturation. It is shown that this effect is based on the nonreciprocal amplification of magnetostatic surface waves (MSSW) across the ferrite slab. The inclusion of losses in our analysis has also made it possible to prove this effect for realistic yttrium iron garnet ferrite samples. For ferrite slabs of width d, the resolution at the image plane (at a distance 2d from the source) is better than the resolution in air at a distance d of the source, which leads to an equivalent air length of the ferrite slab less than zero. Since the constitutive parameters of saturated ferrites depend on the external magnetizing field, the operation frequency of the proposed imaging devices can be tuned by varying this biasing field. (C) 2005 American Institute Physics.