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
Rights
© 2016, Publisher / the Author(s). This work is made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. This is the author created, accepted version manuscript following peer review and may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at onlinelibrary.wiley.com / https://dx.doi.org/10.1002/lpor.201500326
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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