We study the propagation of surface polaritons in a left-handed curved slab, i.e. a curved slab made of a negative-refractive-index material. We consider the effects of the slab curvature on their dispersion relations and attenuations. We show more particularly that surface polaritons with a "left-handed behavior" (i.e. with opposite group and phase velocities) propagate without any attenuation.
Using complex plane analysis we show that left-handed slab may support either leaky slab waves, which are backward because of negative refraction, or leaky surface waves, which are backward or forward depending on the propagation direction of the surface wave itself. Moreover, there is a general connection between the reflection coefficient of the left-handed slab and the one of the corresponding right-handed slab (with opposite permittivity and permeability) so that leaky slab modes are excited for the same angle of incidence of the impinging beam for both structures. Many negative giant late…
Surface-plasmon-polariton~(SPP) wave propagation guided by a metal slab in a periodically nonhomogeneous sculptured nematic thin film~(SNTF) was studied theoretically. The morphologically significant planes of the SNTF on both sides of the metal slab could either be aligned or twisted with respect to each other. The canonical boundary-value problem was formulated, solved for SPP-wave propagation, and examined to determine the effect of slab thickness on the multiplicity and the spatial profiles of SPP waves. Decrease in slab thickness was found to result in more intense coupling of two metal/S…
We numerically investigate the propagation of a spatially localized and quasi-monochromatic electromagnetic pulse through a slab with Lorentz dielectric response in the epsilon-near-zero regime, where the real part of the permittivity vanishes at the pulse carrier frequency. We show that the pulse is able to excite a set of virtual polariton modes supported by the slab, the excitation undergoing a generally slow damping due to absorption and radiation leakage. Our numerical and analytical approaches indicate that in its transient dynamics the electromagnetic field displays the very same enhanc…
The characteristics of an imaging system formed by a slab of a lossy left-handed material (LHM) are studied. The transfer function of the LHM imaging system is written in an appropriate product form with each term having a clear physical interpretation. A tiny loss of the LHM may suppress the transmission of evanescent waves through the LHM slab and this is explained physically. An analytical expression for the resolution of the imaging system is derived. It is shown that it is impossible to make a subwavelength imaging by using a realistic LHM imaging system unless the LHM slab is much thinne…
Polaritons - hybrid light-mater excitations - are very appealing for the confinement of light at the nanoscale. Recently, different kinds of polaritons have been observed in thin slabs of van der Waals (vdW) materials, with particular interest focused on phonon polaritons (PhPs) - lattice vibrations coupled to electromagnetic fields in the mid-infrared spectral range with - in biaxial crystals, such as e.g. MoO3. In particular, hyperbolic PhPs - having hyperbola-like shape of their isofrequency curves - in MoO3 can exhibit ultra-high momenta and strongly directional in-plane propagation, promi…
Using an extended plane-wave-based transfer-matrix method, the photonic band structures and the corresponding transmission spectrum of a two-dimensional left-handed photonic crystal are calculated. Comparisons between the periodic structure with a single left-handed cylindric rod are made, and many interesting similarities are found. It is shown that, due to the localized surface polaritons presented by an isolated left-handed rod, there exist many exciting physical phenomena in high-dimensional left-handed photonic crystals. As direct results of coupling of the localized surface polaritons of…
It is reported that when a light beam travels through a slab of left-handed medium in the air, the lateral shift of the transmitted beam can be negative as well as positive. The necessary condition for the lateral shift to be positive is given. The validity of the stationary-phase approach is demonstrated by numerical simulations for a Gaussian-shaped beam. A restriction to the slab's thickness is provided that is necessary for the beam to retain its profile in the traveling. It is shown that the lateral shift of the reflected beam is equal to that of the transmitted beam in the symmetric conf…
We explored the effects of relative motion on the excitation of surface-plasmon-polariton (SPP) waves guided by the planar interface of a metal film and a dielectric slab, both materials being isotropic and homogeneous. Electromagnetic phasors in moving and non-moving reference frames were related directly using the corresponding Lorentz transformations. Our numerical studies revealed that, in the case of a uniformly moving dielectric slab, the angle of incidence for SPP-wave excitation is highly sensitive to (i) the ratio $β$ of the speed of motion to speed of light in free space and (ii) the…
We report on III-nitride waveguides with c-plane GaN/AlGaN quantum wells in the strong light-matter coupling regime supporting propagating polaritons. They feature a normal mode splitting as large as 60 meV at low temperatures thanks to the large overlap between the optical mode and the active region, a polariton decay length up to 100 $μ$m for photon-like polaritons and lifetime of 1-2 ps; with the latter values being essentially limited by residual absorption occurring in the waveguide. The fully lattice-matched nature of the structure allows for very low disorder and high in-plane homogenei…
On the basis of angular spectrum representation, a formalism describing paraxial beams propagating through an isotropic left-handed material (LHM) slab is presented. The treatment allows us to introduce the ideas of beam focusing and phase compensation by LHM slab. Because of the negative refractive index of LHM slab, the inverse Gouy phase shift and the negative Rayleigh length of paraxial Gaussian beam are proposed. It is shown that the phase difference caused by the Gouy phase shift in right-handed material (RHM) can be compensated by that caused by the inverse Gouy phase shift in LHM. If c…
We consider the scattering of electromagnetic waves by a left-handed cylinder -- i.e., by a cylinder fabricated from a left-handed material -- in the framework of complex angular momentum techniques. We discuss both the TE and TM theories. We emphasize more particularly the resonant aspects of the problem linked to the existence of surface polaritons. We prove that the long-lived resonant modes can be classified into distinct families, each family being generated by one surface polariton propagating close to the cylinder surface and we physically describe all the surface polaritons by providin…
The negative shifts seen by Wang and Zhu are not due to the excitation of surface plasmons but to leaky modes of the slab propagating backward. Provided the characteristics of the LHM slab are chosen correctly, it is shown that a leaky surface plasmon can actually be excited using the KR configuration.
We consider the interaction of an electromagnetic field with a left-handed sphere, i.e., with a sphere fabricated from a left-handed material, in the framework of complex angular momentum techniques. We emphasize more particularly, from a semiclassical point of view, the resonant aspects of the problem linked to the existence of surface polaritons. We prove that the long-lived resonant modes can be classified into distinct families, each family being generated by one surface polariton propagating close to the sphere surface and we physically describe all the surface polaritons by providing, fo…
Anisotropic crystals have recently attracted considerable attention because of their ability to support polaritons with a variety of unique properties, such as hyperbolic dispersion, negative phase velocity, or extreme confinement. Particularly, the biaxial crystal $α$-MoO$_3$ has been demonstrated to support phonon polaritons, light coupled to lattice vibrations, with in-plane anisotropic propagation and unusually long lifetime. However, the lack of theoretical studies on electromagnetic modes in biaxial crystal slabs impedes a complete interpretation of the experimental data, as well as an e…
Recent discoveries have shown that when two layers of van der Waals (vdW) materials are superimposed with a relative twist angle between their respective in-plane principal axes, the electronic properties of the coupled system can be dramatically altered. Here, we demonstrate that a similar concept can be extended to the optics realm, particularly to propagating polaritons, hybrid light-matter interactions. To do this, we fabricate stacks composed of two twisted slabs of a polar vdW crystal (MoO3) supporting low-loss anisotropic phonon polaritons (PhPs), and image the propagation of the latter…
Recently reported large values of exciton-polariton nonlinearity of transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) monolayers coupled to optically resonant structures approach the values characteristic for GaAs-based systems in the regime of strong light-matter coupling. Contrary to the latter, TMD-based polaritonic devices remain operational at ambient conditions and therefore have greater potential for practical nanophotonic applications. Here we present the study of the nonlinear properties of Ta$_2$O$_5$ slab waveguide coupled to a WSe$_2$ monolayer. We first confirm that the hybridization between …
Plasmon and polariton modes are derived for an ideal semi-infinite (half-space) plasma and an ideal plasma slab by using a general, unifying procedure, based on equations of motion, Maxwell's equations and suitable boundary conditions. Known results are re-obtained in much a more direct manner and new ones are derived. The approach consists of representing the charge disturbances by a displacement field in the positions of the moving particles (electrons). The dielectric response and the electron energy loss are computed. The surface contribution to the energy loss exhibits an oscillatory beha…
We show that the finite-difference frequency-domain method is well-suited to study subwavelength lensing effects in left-handed materials (LHM's) and related problems. The method is efficient and works in the frequency domain, eliminating the need for specifying dispersion models for the permeability and permittivity as required by the popular finite-difference time-domain method. We show that "superlensing" in a LHM slab with refractive index n = -1 can be approached by introducing an arbitrarily small loss term. We also study a thin silver slab, which can exhibit subwavelength imaging in the…
We investigate in this paper the imaging properties of an absorptive left-handed material (LHM) slab. For a line source, a geometric explanation to the reason of the thickness limitation on an ideal slab is given. For a lossy slab, the imaging properties are determined by the wavelength, the slab thickness, the distance from the source to the nearer boundary of the slab, and the absorption effect. Varying the ratios between these quantities, the image width can be changed from wavelength to subwavelength scale. In the former situation, the energy density is mainly concentrated at the two image…
We photo-excite slab polymer waveguides doped with J-aggregating dye molecules and measure the leaky emission from strongly coupled waveguide exciton polariton modes at room temperature. We show that the momentum of the waveguide exciton polaritons can be controlled by modifying the thickness of the excitonic waveguide. Non-resonantly pumped excitons in the slab excitonic waveguide decay into transverse electric and transverse magnetic strongly coupled exciton waveguide modes with radial symmetry. These leak to cones of light with radial and azimuthal polarizations.
Graphene plasmons promise exciting nanophotonic and optoelectronic applications. Owing to their extremely short wavelengths, however, the efficient coupling of photons to graphene plasmons - critical for the development of future devices - can be challenging. Here, we propose and numerically demonstrate coupling between infrared photons and graphene plasmons by the compression of surface polaritons on tapered bulk slabs of both polar and doped- semiconductor materials. Propagation of the surface phonon polaritons (in SiC) and surface plasmon polaritons (in n-GaAs) along the tapered slabs compr…
A theoretical description of radiation-matter coupling for semiconductor-based photonic crystal slabs is presented, in which quantum wells are embedded within the waveguide core layer. A full quantum theory is developed, by quantizing both the electromagnetic field with a spatial modulation of the refractive index and the exciton center of mass field in a periodic piecewise constant potential. The second-quantized hamiltonian of the interacting system is diagonalized with a generalized Hopfield method, thus yielding the complex dispersion of mixed exciton-photon modes including losses. The occ…
When a circularly polarized plane wave is normally incident on a slab of a structurally chiral material with local $\bar{4}2m$ point group symmetry and a central twist defect, the slab can function as either a narrowband reflection hole filter for co-handed plane waves or an ultranarrowband transmission hole filter for cross-handed plane waves, depending on its thickness and the magnitude of the applied dc electric field. Exploitation of the Pockels effect significantly reduces the thickness of the slab.
We study the transmission properties of a nonlinear periodic structure containing alternating slabs of a nonlinear right handed material and a linear left handed material. We find that the transmission associated with the zero averaged- refractive- index gap exhibits a bistable characteristic that is relatively insensitive to incident angle. This is in contrast to the nonlinear behavior of the usual Bragg gap
Nanofocusing of light offers new technological opportunities for the delivery and manipulation of electromagnetic fields at sub-diffraction limited length scales. Here, we show that hyperbolic phonon polarity,HPP, modes in the mid infrared as supported by a hexagonal boron nitride, h-BN, slab can be nanofocused (i.e. both field enhanced and wavelength compressed) by propagation along a vertical taper. Via numerical simulations, we demonstrate that field enhancement factors of 90, for steep tapers, and wavelength compression of more than an order of magnitude for adiabatic tapers, can be expect…
We study nonlinear transmission of an asymmetric multilayer structure created by alternating slabs of two materials with positive and negative refractive index. We demonstrate that such a structure exhibits passive spatially nonreciprocal transmission of electromagnetic waves, the analogue of the electronic diode. We study the properties of this left-handed diode and confirm its highly nonreciprocal and bistable transmittance by employing direct simulations.
We develop a new approach to build a material with negative refraction index. In contrast to conventional designs which make use of a resonant behavior to achieve a non-zero magnetic response, our material is intrinsically non-magnetic and relies on an anisotropic dielectric constant to provide a left-handed response in waveguide geometry. We demonstrate that the proposed material can support surface (polariton) waves, and show the connection between polaritons and the enhancement of evanescent fields, also referred to as super-lensing.
The contra-directional coupling between a left-handed monomode waveguide and a right-handed monomode waveguide is rigorously studied using a complex plane analysis. Light is shown to rotate in this lamellar structure forming a very exotic mode which we have called a light wheel. The light wheel can be excited using evanescent coupling or by placing sources in one of the waveguides. This structure can thus be seen as a new type of cavity. It is a way to suppress the guided mode of a dielectric slab.
We study resonant tunneling through a layered medium with a negative index medium (NIM) slab as a constituent layer. We demonstrate large delays in transmission mediated by the surface and the guided modes of the structure with low losses. We show how important it is to include NIM dispersion for correct assessment of the nature and magnitude of the delay. We also point out the role of NIM absorption for the feasibility of such compact delay devices.
We study a ring cavity filled with a slab of a right-handed material and a slab of a left-handed material. Both layers are assumed to be nonlinear Kerr media. First, we derive a model for the propagation of light in a left-handed material. By constructing a mean-field model, we show that the sign of diffraction can be made either positive or negative in this resonator, depending on the thicknesses of the layers. Subsequently, we demonstrate that the dynamical behavior of the modulation instability is strongly affected by the sign of the diffraction coefficient. Finally, we study the dissipativ…
Recently the new concepts of transverse spin angular momentum and Belinfante spin momentum of evanescent waves have drawn considerable attention. Here, we investigate these novel physical properties of electromagnetic fields in the context of locally excited surface plasmon polaritons. We demonstrate, both analytically and numerically, that locally excited surface plasmon polaritons possess transverse spin angular momentum and Belinfante momentum with rich and non-trivial characteristics. We also show that the transverse spin angular momentum of locally excited surface plasmon polaritons leads…
It is shown that a system of two coupled planar material sheets possessing surface mode (polariton) resonances can be used for the purpose of evanescent field restoration and, thus, for the sub-wavelength near-field imaging. The sheets are placed in free space so that they are parallel and separated by a certain distance. Due to interaction of the resonating surface modes (polaritons) of the sheets an exponential growth in the amplitude of an evanescent plane wave coming through the system can be achieved. This effect was predicted earlier for backward-wave (double-negative or Veselago) slab l…
We study the second-harmonic generation in left-handed metamaterials with a quadratic nonlinear response. We demonstrate a novel type of the exact phase matching between the backward propagating wave of the fundamental frequency and the forward propagating wave of the second harmonics. We show that this novel parametric process can convert a surface of the left-handed metamaterial into an effective mirror totally reflecting the second harmonics generated by an incident wave. We derive and analyze theoretically the coupled-mode equations for a semi-infinite nonlinear metamaterial. We also study…
We study the beam reflection from a layered structure with a left-handed metamaterial. We predict a giant lateral (Goos-Hanchen) shift and splitting of the beam due to the resonant excitation of surface polaritons with a vortex-like energy flow between the right- and left-handed materials.
We introduce the concept of subwavelength imaging with an opaque nonlinear left-handed lens by generating the second-harmonic field. We consider a slab of composite left-handed metamaterial with quadratic nonlinear response and show that such a flat lens can form, under certain conditions, an image of the second-harmonic field of the source being opaque at the fundamental frequency.
We analyze transmission of a layered photonic structure (a one-dimensional photonic crystal) consisting of alternating slabs of two materials with positive and negative refractive index. For the periodic structure with zero averaged refractive index, we demonstrate a number of unique properties of the beam transmission observed in strong beam modification and reshaping.
It has been predicted theoretically and demonstrated experimentally that a planar slab supporting surface plasmons or surface phonon polaritons can behave as a super lens. However, the resolution is limited by the losses of the slab. In this letter, we point out that the resolution limit imposed by losses can be overcome by using time-dependent illumination.
A structurally right/left-handed ferrocholesteric slab with negative real permittivities and permeabilities is theoretically shown to display the Bragg phenomenon on axial excitation as if it were a structurally left/right-handed ferrocholesteric slab with positive real permittivities and positive real permeabilities. In addition to the promise of isotropic homogeneous materials with negative real permittivities and permeabilities for unexpected applications, the presented results underscore the similar potential of anisotropic nonhomogeneous materials with analogous characteristics.
A theoretical analysis of the lateral displacement (Goos-Hänchen shift) of spatially limited beams reflected from Attenuated Total Reflection (ATR) devices in the Otto configuration is presented when backward surface plasmon polaritons are excited at the interface between a positive refractive index slab and a semiinfinite metamaterial with negative refractive index. First, the stationary phase approximation and a phenomenological model based on the properties of the complex poles and zeroes of the reflection coefficient are used to demonstrate that: i) the excitation of backward surface waves…
Using detailed simulations we investigate the magnetic response of metamaterials consisting of pairs of parallel slabs or combinations of slabs with wires (including the fishnet design) as the length-scale of the structures is reduced from mm to nm. We observe the expected saturation of the magnetic resonance frequency when the structure length-scale goes to the sub-micron regime, as well as weakening of the effective permeability resonance and reduction of the spectral width of the negative permeability region. All these results are explained by using an equivalent resistor-inductor-capacitor…
We study the defect-induced nonlinear transmission of a periodic structure created by alternating slabs of two materials with positive and negative refractive index. We demonstrate bistable switching and tunable nonlinear transmission in a novel type of bandgap that corresponds to the vanishing average refractive index, and compare the observed effects for two types of the bandgaps.
The second harmonic generation is one of the most important applications of nonlinear effect, which has attracted great interests in nonlinear optics and microwave in the past decades. To the best of our knowledge, however, generating the second harmonics of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) has not been reported. Here, we propose to generate the second harmonics of spoof SPPs with high efficiency at microwave frequencies using subwavelength-scale nonlinear active device integrated on specially designed plasmonic waveguides, which are composed of two ultrathin corrugated metallic strips printe…
We consider a p-polarized surface electromagnetic wave (a classical surface polariton) at the interface between the vacuum and a metal or left-handed medium. We show that the evanescent electromagnetic waves forming the surface polariton inevitably possess a backward spin energy flow, which, together with a superluminal orbital energy flow, form the total Poynting vector. This spin energy flow generates a well-defined (but not quantized) spin angular momentum of surface polaritons which is orthogonal to the propagation direction. The spin of evanescent waves arises from the imaginary longitudi…
We analyze transmission of electromagnetic waves through a periodic band-gap structure consisting of slabs of a left-handed metamaterial and air. Using the effective parameters of the metamaterial derived from its microscopic structure, we study, with the help of the transfer-matrix approach and by means of the finite-difference-time-domain numerical simulations, the transmission properties of such a left-handed photonic crystals in a novel type of band gap associated with the zero averaged refractive index. We demonstrate that the transmission can be made tunable by introducing defects, which…
Chiral surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) can be generated by linearly polarized light incident at the end of a nanowire, exciting a coherent superposition of three specific nanowire waveguide modes. Images of chiral SPPs on individual nanowires obtained from quantum dot fluorescence excited by the SPP evanescent field reveal the chirality predicted in our theoretical model. The handedness and spatial extent of the helical periods of the chiral SPPs depend on the input polarization angle and nanowire diameter as well as the dielectric environment. Chirality is preserved in the free-space output…
We investigate the optical properties of sub-wavelength layered metal/dielectric structures, also known as hyperbolic metamaterials (HMMs), using exact analytical Kronig Penney (KP) model. We show that hyperbolic isofrequency surfaces exist for all combinations of layer permittivities and thicknesses, and the largest Purcell enhancements (PE) of spontaneous radiation are achieved away from the nominally hyperbolic region. Detailed comparison of field distributions, dispersion curves, and Purcell factors (PF) between the HMMs and Surface Plasmon Polaritons (SPPs) guided modes in metal/dielectri…
We present a way of exciting surface plasmon polaritons along non-patterned metallic surfaces by means of a flat squeezing slab designed with transformation optics. The slab changes the dispersion relation of incident light, enabling evanescent coupling to propagating surface plasmons. Unlike prism couplers, the proposed device does not introduce reflections at its input interface. Moreover, its compact geometry is suitable for integration. A feasible dielectric implementation of the coupler is suggested. Finally, we show that the angular response of the device can be engineered by using a non…