Additional boundary conditions for nonconnected wire media

Abstract

Continuing our recent work (2008 New J. Phys. 10 053011), we demonstrate that due to strong nonlocal effects additional boundary conditions (ABCs) are essential to characterize the reflection of electromagnetic waves by nonconnected wire arrays using homogenization methods. Based on simple physical considerations, we derive the ABCs for circumstances where the wire medium is adjacent either to a dielectric or to a conducting material, and demonstrate that in the lossless case such boundary conditions ensure the conservation of the power flow. It is shown that the number of ABCs is related to the number of metallic wires in a unit cell. We illustrate the application of the novel boundary conditions to several configurations with practical interest.