Epsilon-Near-Zero Nanoantennas

In this paper the design of Epsilon Near Zero (ENZ) antennas, working in the infrared and optical regime, is presented. Two different structures are considered: the classical PEC antenna and the dielectric dipole covered by ENZ material antenna. The main crucial aspect concerning this paper is the possibility to reproduce the same behavior of a classical half-wavelength dipole also for shorter dimensions. The electromagnetic behavior of the structure (in terms of radiation efficiency, gain and bandwidth) becomes independent from its geometry. The proposed structure offers great potential in a wide variety of practical application fields such as detection and sensing, communications applications.