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arXiv:1302.0096 · Journal of the Optical Society of America B

Optical pulse dynamics in active metamaterials with positive and negative refractive index

A. O. Korotkevich, Kathryn E. Rasmussen, Gregor Kovačič, Victor Roytburd, Andrei I. Maimistov, Ildar R. Gabitov

Published Mar 29, 2013• 3 citations
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Abstract

We study numerically the propagation of two-color light pulses through a metamaterial doped with active atoms such that the carrier frequencies of the pulses are in resonance with two atomic transitions in the Λ configuration and that one color propagates in the regime of positive refraction and the other in the regime of negative refraction. In such a metamaterial, one resonant color of light propagates with positive and the other with negative group velocity. We investigate nonlinear interaction of these forward- and backward-propagating waves and find self-trapped waves, counterpropagating radiation waves, and hot spots of medium excitation.

DOI
10.1364/josab.30.001077

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We study numerically the propagation of two-color light pulses through a metamaterial doped with active atoms such that the carrier frequencies of the pulses are in resonance with two atomic transitions in the Λ configuration and that one color propagates in the regime of positive refraction and the other in the regime of negative refraction. In such a metamaterial, one resonant color of light propagates with positive and the other with negative group velocity. We investigate nonlinear interaction of these forward- and backward-propagating waves and find self-trapped waves, counterpropagating radiation waves, and hot spots of medium excitation.
We review recent theoretical and experimental in progress in the realisation of slow and stopped light by the 'trapped rainbow' principle in optical metamaterials featuring negative electromagnetic parameters (permittivity/permeability and/or refractive index). We explain how and why these structures can enable complete stopping of light even in the presence of disorder and, simultaneously, dissipative losses. Using full-wave numerical simulations we show that the incorporation of thin layers made of an active medium adjacently to the core layer of a negative-refractive-index waveguide can completely remove dissipative losses - in a slow-light regime where the effective index of the guided wave is negative.
Summary form only given. The propagation of light in a dispersive medium is characterized by the group velocity /spl nu//sub g/=c(n+/spl nu//sup dn//d/spl nu/)/sup .1/ where n is the refractive index and /spl nu/ the optical frequency. Depending on the sign and magnitude of /sup dn//d/spl nu/ in the medium, the group velocity can be positive, infinite or negative. The group velocity corresponds to the speed of the propagation of the maximum of an optical pulse travelling into the medium. This remains true whether the dispersion in the medium is normal (/sup dn//d/spl nu/>0) or anomalous (/sup dn//d/spl nu/<0). It has been demonstrated that coherently prepared atomic systems can exhibit steep dispersion leading to small absolute values of the group velocity (slow light). In recent work, we have demonstrated that narrow resonances arising from the coherent interaction of two optical fields with a closed atomic transition between two degenerate levels may correspond to a steep anomalous dispersion and thus to slow and negative group velocity. We report on the experimental study of the propagation of an amplitude modulated wave in a medium presenting negative group velocity.
The dynamics of light pulses with amplitude and phase modulations is investigated for a medium of resonant two-level atoms. It is shown that the pulse-like variations of the phase can be also described in terms of group velocity. It is found that in the nonlinear regime of atom-field interaction, the group velocities of amplitude and phase pulses can have a large imbalance. Namely, amplitude pulses travel at a velocity less than ccc, whereas the group velocity of phase pulses is greater than the velocity of light in free space or it is even negative. The predicted imbalance of the group velocities can be important in the case of chirped pulses propagating in a resonant medium.
The quest to manipulate light propagation in ways not possible with natural media has driven the development of artificially structured metamaterials. One of the most striking effects is negative refraction, where the light beam deflects away from the boundary normal. However, due to material characteristics, the applications of this phenomenon, such as lensing that surpasses the diffraction limit, have been constrained. Here, we demonstrate negative refraction of light in an atomic medium without the use of artificial metamaterials, employing essentially exact simulations of light propagation. High transmission negative refraction is achieved in atomic arrays for different level structures and lattice constants, within the scope of currently realised experimental systems. We introduce an intuitive description of negative refraction based on collective excitation bands, whose transverse group velocities are antiparallel to the excitation quasi-momenta. We also illustrate how this phenomenon is robust to lattice imperfections and can be significantly enhanced through subradiance.
The effect on the propagation of the pulse on varying the thickness of the core of an adiabatically tapered negative refractive-index metamaterial (MM) heterostructure is investigated. In addition to the 'trapped rainbow' effect, a corresponding arrangement in which the refractive index of a uniform core layer, rather than its thickness is adiabatically varied, is numerically studied. This avoids numerical issues related to the boundary conditions between negative and positive index layers, which normally require averaging the tangential and normal field components at the core/cladding interfaces.