Superlensing effect of an anisotropic metamaterial slab with near-zero dynamic mass

A metamaterial slab of anisotropic mass with one diagonal component being infinity and the other being zero is demonstrated to behave as a superlens for acoustic imaging beyond the diffraction limit. The underlying mechanism for extraordinary transmission of evanescent waves is attributed to the zero mass effect. Microstructure design for such anisotropic lens is also presented. In contrast to the anisotropic superlens based on Fabry-Perot resonant mechanism, the proposed lens operates without the limitation on lens thickness, thus more flexible in practical applications. Numerical modeling is performed to validate the proposed ideas. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3607277]