Enhanced nonlinear effects in pulse propagation through epsilon-near-zero media
Abstract
In recent years, unconventional metamaterial properties have triggered a revolution of electromagnetic research which has unveiled novel scenarios of wave-matter interaction. A very small dielectric permittivity is a leading example of such unusual features, since it produces an exotic static-like regime where the electromagnetic field is spatially slowly-varying over a physically large region. The so-called epsilon-near-zero metamaterials thus offer an ideal platform where to manipulate the inner details of the “stretched” field. Here we theoretically prove that a standard nonlinearity is able to operate such a manipulation to the point that even a thin slab produces a dramatic nonlinear pulse transformation, if the dielectric permittivity is very small within the field bandwidth. The predicted non-resonant releasing of full nonlinear coupling produced by the epsilon-near-zero condition does not resort to any field enhancement mechanism and opens novel routes to exploiting matter nonlinearity for steering the radiation by means of ultra-compact structures.
Citation
Ciattoni , A , Rizza , C , Marini , A , Di Falco , A , Faccio , D & Scalora , M 2016 , ' Enhanced nonlinear effects in pulse propagation through epsilon-near-zero media ' , Laser & Photonics Reviews , vol. 10 , no. 3 , pp. 517-525 . https://doi.org/10.1002/lpor.201500326
Publication
Laser & Photonics Reviews
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
1863-8899Type
Journal article
Description
A.C. and C.R. acknowledge support from U.S. Army International Technology Center Atlantic for financial support (Grant No. W911NF-14-1-0315). A.D.F. acknowledges support from EPSRC (EP/I004602/1). D.F. acknowledges support from the European Research Council under the European Unions Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013)/ERC GA 306559.Collections
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