  We propose to employ the quasiisotropic metamaterial (QIMM) slab to construct
a polarization insensitive lens, in which both E- and H-polarized waves exhibit
the same refocusing effect. For shallow incident angles, the QIMM slab will
provide some degree of refocusing in the same manner as an isotropic negative
index material. The refocusing effect allows us to introduce the ideas of
paraxial beam focusing and phase compensation by the QIMM slab. On the basis of
angular spectrum representation, a formalism describing paraxial beams
propagating through a QIMM slab is presented. Because of the negative phase
velocity in the QIMM slab, the inverse Gouy phase shift and the negative
Rayleigh length of paraxial Gaussian beam are proposed. We find that the phase
difference caused by the Gouy phase shift in vacuum can be compensated by that
caused by the inverse Gouy phase shift in the QIMM slab. If certain matching
conditions are satisfied, the intensity and phase distributions at object plane
can be completely reconstructed at image plane. Our simulation results show
that the superlensing effect with subwavelength image resolution could be
achieved in the form of a QIMM slab.
