Surface polaritons of a left-handed material slab

The dispersion relations of the surface polaritons of a slab made of a material which has dispersive permittivity and permeability, and is left-handed over a frequency band in the microwave range of several GHz, are investigated. Four branches of p polarized surface polaritons and two branches of s polarized ones are found to exist. The possibility of experimentally observing the surface polaritons by the attenuated total reflection method is demonstrated.