Control of planar nonlinear guided waves and spatial solitons with a left-handed medium

Abstract

The evidence that double negative media, with an effective negative permittivity, and an effective negative permeability, can be manufactured to operate at frequencies ranging from microwave to optical is ushering in a new era of metamaterials. They are referred to here as 'left-handed', even though a variety of names is evident from the literature. In anticipation of a demand for highly structured integrated practical waveguides, this paper addresses the impact of this type of medium upon waveguides that can be also nonlinear. After an interesting historical overview and an exposure of some straightforward concepts, a planar guide is investigated, in which the waveguide is a slab consisting of a left-handed medium sandwiched between a substrate and cladding that are simple dielectrics. The substrate and cladding display a Kerr-type nonlinear response. Because of the nonlinear properties of the Kerr media, the power flow direction can be controlled by the intensity of the electric field. A comprehensive finite-difference-time-domain (FDTD) analysis is presented that concentrates upon spatial soliton behaviour. An interesting soliton-lens arrangement is investigated that lends itself to a novel cancellation effect.

19 pages, 11 figures

References in corpus (7)

• Refraction at Media with Negative Refractive Index
• Guided Modes in Negative Refractive Index Waveguides
• Nonlinear surface waves in left-handed materials
• Focussing Light Using Negative Refraction
• The negative index of refraction demystified
• Subwavelength imaging by a left-handed material superlens
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Cited by in corpus (7)

• Negative Refraction in Perspective
• Gyrotropic impact upon negatively refracting surfaces
• Perfectly Matched Layers for Coupled Nonlinear Schrödinger Equations with Mixed Derivatives
• Ultra-narrow Bright Spatial Solitons Interacting with Left-handed Surfaces
• Chirped periodic and solitary waves in nonlinear negative index materials
• Dynamics of nonlinear-Schroedinger breathers in a potential trap
• Single- and multi-peak solitons in two-component models of metamaterials and photonic crystals