This is the common way, using a sandwich of PCBs.
The simplest metamaterial is an 1.5mmFR4 on which you put repeatable
(computed size) copper shapes on both layers. This "metamaterial" can be
put in the front of your PCB antenna and will change the antenna
characteristic. It's not such a fantastic thing, just the name is very
emphatic...:) Also can be used as a filter.

On Thu, Aug 27, 2015 at 3:47 PM, Sean Breheny <shb7@cornell.edu> wrote:

> Thanks, Dave. I never thought of implementing a metamaterial in a PCB.
>
>
> On Wed, Aug 26, 2015 at 7:37 PM, David VanHorn <microbrix@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Warning:  Possible black hole time sink for some people
> >
> >
> > I just had occasion to use metamaterials in a design project.
> > It's pretty cool stuff.
> >
> > My problem was a PCB antenna for 2.4G that needs to tolerate being plac=
ed
> > on top of a DVD player or similar with a steel case.
> >
> > The design came to me with a lot of conditions, including "no external
> > antenna" and "nothing sticking out of the case", and "as inexpensive as
> > possible"
> >
> > I simulated a number of designs in Xfdtd and found a nice broadband
> antenna
> > that is better than 10dB return loss from about 1Ghz through 7+ Ghz.
> > Modeled in the plastics in free space, it's great.
> > Modeled on a wood shelf, it's great.  Modeled on the DVD player, it's a
> > total mess with horrible return loss.
> >
> > As usual, the product owners could care less about the laws of physics,
> > they just don't want it to be ugly.  Plastic tooling has been finished
> for
> > a long time, so I couldn't do anything sensible like flip the PCB to th=
e
> > top side of the case.
> >
> > By chance, I hit on an article about metamaterials.  Without getting to=
o
> > specific, I designed a PCB footprint to be a resonant metamaterial "ato=
m"
> > and put an array of those in the PCB underneath the antenna.
> >
> > Now when the horrible metal DVD player is present, the return loss goes
> to
> > hell everywhere except the 2.4-2.5 GHz band!  The metamaterial reflecti=
on
> > actually adds to the main signal and I get about 6.7 dBi gain on antenn=
a
> > that would be normally 2-3dBi, and the radiation pattern is pretty dece=
nt
> > as well.  It's not isotropic, but it's "good enough".
> >
> > Anyone else using metamaterials?
> >
> > A nice overview:
> >
> https://www.nsa.gov/research/tnw/tnw203/articles/pdfs/TNW203_article4.pdf
> >
> > One type of metamaterial
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-ring_resonator
> >
> > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DKS3tX3O0EJQ
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