Evaluating the potential shielding properties of periodic metamaterial slabs

Metamaterials can prove to be good candidates for shields in EMC applications where weight reduction is a challenge. Indeed metamaterial slabs can provide the same reflective properties as conventional metallic screens but with a lower density and reduced weight. Another advantage is that they can be tailored to exhibit required frequency-selective properties. However, their performance in terms of shielding performance has yet to be evaluated. In this paper, a method to evaluate the shielding performance of a metamaterial slab consisting of arbitrary-shaped metallic inclusions in a dielectric host is proposed. The specific case of periodic metamaterials will be considered for both resonant and non-resonant inclusions in the effective-homogeneity limit.