Folded bands in metamaterial photonic crystals

The dispersion relation of periodic structures that include metamaterials or materials with large anomalous dispersion can give bands with infinite group velocity points. These bands do not span the entire first Brillouin zone but are instead localized in k-space. We show that these points arise when both positive and negative elements are present, with the group index rather than the refractive index being the controlling quantity. A rigorous condition and two approximations are derived, each showing that an appropriate weighted average of group index being zero leads to infinite group velocity points.