Fundamental limitations to gain enhancement in periodic media and waveguides

Abstract

A common strategy to compensate for losses in optical nanostructures is to add gain material in the system. By exploiting slow-light effects it is expected that the gain may be enhanced beyond its bulk value. Here we show that this route cannot be followed uncritically: inclusion of gain inevitably modifies the underlying dispersion law, and thereby may degrade the slow-light properties underlying the device operation and the anticipated gain enhancement itself. This degradation is generic; we demonstrate it for three different systems of current interest (coupled resonator optical waveguides, Bragg stacks, and photonic crystal waveguides). Nevertheless, a small amount of added gain may be beneficial.

References in corpus (6)

• Cavity Quantum Electrodynamics with Anderson-localized Modes
• Overcoming losses with gain in a negative refractive index metamaterial
• Slow-light enhancement of Beer-Lambert-Bouguer absorption
• Limits of slow-light in photonic crystals
• Theory of light amplification in active fishnet metamaterials
• Fundamental limitations to gain enhancement in periodic media and waveguides

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