Materials with Negative Permittivity or Negative Permeability – Review, Electrodynamic Modelling and Applications

Review of natural materials that that exhibit negative permittivity or permeability is presented including gaseous plasma, metals, superconductors and ferromagnetic materials. It is shown that samples made of such materials can store large amount of the electric (magnetic) energies and for some values of permittivity, permeability and dimensions they create plasmonic resonators. The electric and the magnetic plasmon resonances in spherical samples made of such materials are analyzed employing rigorous electrodynamic methods and results of analysis are compared to experiments and to results obtained with other methods. Results of free oscillation and Mie scattering theories are compared. Similarities and differences between permittivity and permeability tensors for magnetized plasma and magnetized ferromagnetic material are underlined. Several physical phenomena are explained on the ground of rigorous electrodynamic analysis and experiments. These phenomena include not equal electric and magnetic energies stored in plasmonic resonators, small influence of dielectric losses on the Q-factors of magnetic plasmon resonances, role of radiation and dissipation losses on properties of plasmonic resonators and theoretical possibility of lightning plasma balls existence.