Blacker than ideally black: Double negative conjugately matched cylinders

We show that using uniaxial double negative metamaterials it is possible to create bodies which optimally absorb power from all spatial harmonics of the incident fields, both propagating and evanescent. Comparing with the ideal black bodies which fully absorb only all propagating waves, these new objects appear “infinitely more black”, in the sense of the absorption efficiency. The concept is illustrated by considering infinite absorptive cylinders. The required material parameters for a conjugately matched cylindrical absorber are derived and absorption efficiency is studied numerically.