Total transmission and total reflection of electromagnetic waves by anisotropic epsilon-near-zero metamaterials embedded with dielectric defects

In this paper, the transmission of the electromagnetic waves in the waveguide filled with the anisotropic epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) metamaterials with dielectric cylindrical defects embedded is investigated. The anisotropy is taken into consideration, and the sandwich structure is put forward to achieve total transmission and total reflection. Despite of the anisotropy and the impedance mismatch compared with the matched impedance zero-index metamaterials, both the analytical and the numerical results show that the total reflection and the total transmission can be achieved. Furthermore, some factors that own potential effects on the transmission of the electromagnetic waves are also discussed, and it is interesting to find that the radius of the embedded dielectric cylindrical defect could greatly affect the bandwidth of total transmission and total reflection. By removing the dependence on isotropy and impedance matching, our work can facilitate the applications of the ENZ metamaterials in the waveguide.