Electromagnetic enhancement in lossy optical transition metamaterials.

We investigate the effect of anomalous field enhancement in metamaterials (MMs) where the effective refractive index gradually changes from positive to negative values, i.e., transition MMs. We demonstrate that considerable field enhancement can be achieved in lossy optical transition MMs that have electromagnetic material properties obtained from experimental data. The field enhancement factor is found to be polarization dependent and largely determined by the material parameters and the width of the transition layer.