The major barrier to realizing a perfect lens with left-handed materials is perceived to be their intrinsic loss. Here we show that only specific designs of perfect lenses are limited by loss-those in which material loss is translated to internal feedback. The asymptotically uniform transmission required for perfect lensing is hindered by such feedback, which generates resonances that lead to a spatial cutoff in the lens transmission. Moreover, uniform transmission and its resonant deterioration stem from completely separate classes of modal excitations. A perfect lens made of lossy left-handed materials is therefore not forbidden in principle. Pursuing perfect lens designs that avoid internal feedback offers a path towards realization of practical perfect lenses.
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