We show experimentally that a line source in an anisotropic metamaterial directly radiates planar electromagnetic waves instead of cylindrical waves, when one component of the permeability tensor approaches zero. The impedance of this material can be perfectly matched to that of free space, which can significantly reduce the reflections between the source and the superstrate, as in traditional highly directive antennas based on zero index metamaterials. Such a unique property determines the two-way propagation of electromagnetic waves excited by a line source, instead of all-way propagation. From this feature, ahighly directive emission of electromagnetic waves is achieved using the anisotropic metamaterial with arbitrary shape. We have designed and fabricated the anisotropic metamaterial in the microwave region, and observed the generation of plane waves and their highly directive emission. The proposed plane-wave emission is independent ofthe shape variance of the anisotropic metamaterial,which can be utilized in the design of conformal antennas.
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