Resolution of negative-index slabs

Different definitions of the resolution of negative-index-material (NIM) slabs and classical optical lenses with magnification 1 are presented and evaluated for both cases. Several numerical codes-based on domain and boundary discretizations and working in the time and frequency domains-are applied and compared. It is shown that superresolution. depends very much on the definition of resolution and that it may be obtained not only for NIM slabs but also for highly refracting classical lenses when the distances of the image and source points from the surface of the lens or slab are shorter than the wavelength. (C) 2006 Optical Society of America.