Artificial Dielectrics, metamaterials- wire media question

[bham-phys986]

Hey,

I'm doing a research project into the construction of artificial dielectrics and the measurement of their dielectric constants and polarization etc. I was reading up on metamaterials recently to try and find a link to surface plasmons or plasmonic behaviour and found a wealth of information about wire (or rodded) media.

The media seems to be used for EM waves with the E field polarized parallel to the wires (or a simple lattice), with most applications in the microwave range. This may sound like a stupid question but I was wondering if such a media were placed inside the uniform field of a parallel plate capacitor (in an AC circuit of variable frequency) if this electric field would also provide data on the plasma frequency and dielectric constant of the material if E is parallel to the wires?

Id appreciate any advice as I am wondering if I am barking up the wrong tree completely here,

Thanks

[bham-phys986]

Also, as the wire arrays exhibit negative permittivity below the plasma frequency which is usually in the microwave GHz range how low can the frequency be before dissipation results in no observation of plasma effects. Would MHz be acceptable?