Shrinking optical devices

Much of optics depends on objects being much larger than the wavelength of light: shadows of opaque objects are sharp only if free of diffraction effects, and ‘cat’s eye’ retroreflectors function only if they are large. Here, we show how to make theoretically arbitrarily small versions of these devices by exploiting the power of a negatively refracting lens to magnify objects that are smaller than the wavelength, thus creating the effect of a large object while keeping all physical dimensions small. We also give a new perspective on the ‘perfect lens theorem’ on which the paper is based. 1 Author to whom any correspondence should be addressed. New Journal of Physics 11 (2009) 073033 1367-2630/09/073033+24$30.00 © IOP Publishing Ltd and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft