Negative Refraction
Some materials have a special property that they have a negative refractive index. By Snell's law, we get that the angle of refraction must be a negative of the angle of incidence. The ray diagram of light traveling into a metamaterial will look like this:
If a straight rod is placed in a such a medium, how would it look?
A.
B.
C.
The stick will appear straight.
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1 solution
Although currently there is no known liquid that has negative index of refraction, what would happen if there is one can still be simulated using ray tracing software. The images below shows the expected behavior with ordinary water where n = 1 . 3 , and with a metamaterial liquid with n = − 1 . 3 .