Left handed composite materials in the optical range

The purpose of this paper is to show that semiconductor nano-structures built from non-magnetic InAs/GaAs nano-rings can exhibit simultaneously negative effective permittivity and permeability over a certain optical frequency range. The structures are resonant and have this property near the edge of absorption of the nano-rings. This can be particularly interesting in the investigation of the challenging problem of development of left-handed composite materials in the optical range. q 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.