Metamaterials exhibiting a negative index of refraction in the visible are of recent interest due to many possible
applications including cloaking and perfect lensing. Nanoparticle dispersed metamaterials have been researched due to
their flexibility in operating frequency, electronic tunability, ease of fabrication and low cost. We propose sputtered
binary polaritronic-plasmonic nanoparticles as candidates for metamaterials. Specifically, we show that co-sputtered SiC
and Ag nanoparticles are used to obtain a negative index in the visible. Experimental verification of the negative
refractive index include the z-scan technique for measurement of the linear refractive index, phase and group velocity
measurements using a double Michelson interferometer, and surface plasmon resonance measurements for s and p
polarizations for finding the effective permeability and permittivity. Through numerical simulations, we show that our
nanoparticle mixture can yield near-field super-resolution for both TE and TM polarizations.
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