We theoretically prove that electromagnetic beams propagating through a nonlinear cubic metamaterial can exhibit a power flow whose direction reverses its sign along the transverse profile. This effect is peculiar of the hitherto unexplored extreme nonlinear regime where the nonlinear response is comparable or even greater than the linear contribution, a condition achievable even at relatively small intensities. We propose a possible metamaterial structure able to support the extreme conditions where the polarization cubic nonlinear contribution does not act as a mere perturbation of the linear part.
We consider a sub-wavelength periodic layered medium whose slabs are filled by arbitrary linear metamaterials and standard nonlinear Kerr media and we show that the homogenized medium behaves as a Kerr medium whose parameters can assume values not available in standard materials. Exploiting such a parameter availability, we focus on the situation where the linear relative dielectric permittivity is very small thus allowing the observation of the extreme nonlinear regime where the nonlinear polarization is comparable with or even greater than the linear part of the overall dielectric response. The behavior of the electromagnetic field in the extreme nonlinear regime is very peculiar and characterized by novel features as, for example, the transverse power flow reversing. In order to probe the novel regime, we consider a class of fields (transverse magnetic nonlinear guided waves) admitting full analytical description and we show that these waves are allowed to propagate even in media with $epsilon<0$ and $mu >0$ since the nonlinear polarization produces a positive overall effective permittivity. The considered nonlinear waves exhibit, in addition to the mentioned features, a number of interesting properties like hyper-focusing induced by the phase difference between the field components.
We investigate non-diffracting hollow-core nonlinear optical waves propagating in a layered nanoscaled metal-dielectric structure characterized by a very small average linear dielectric permittivity (Nonlinear Epsilon-Near-Zero metamaterial). We analytically show that hollow-core waves have a power flow exactly vanishing at a central region and exhibiting a sharp sloped profile at the edges of the regions surrounding the core. Physically, the absence of power flow at the core region is due to the vanishing of the transverse component of the electric displacement field, condition that can be satisfied by the full compensation between the nonlinear and linear dielectric contribution.
In this paper we introduce a generalized concept of field-transforming metamaterials, which perform field transformations defined as linear relations between the original and transformed fields. These artificial media change the fields in a prescribed fashion in the volume occupied by the medium. We show what electromagnetic properties of transforming medium are required. The coefficients of these linear functions can be arbitrary scalar functions of position and frequency, which makes the approach quite general and opens a possibility to realize various unusual devices.
It is shown theoretically that a nonchiral, two-dimensional array of metallic spheres exhibits optical activity as manifested in calculations of circular dichroism. The metallic spheres occupy the sites of a rectangular lattice and for off-normal incidence they show a strong circular-dichroism effect around the surface plasmon frequencies. The optical activity is a result of the rectangular symmetry of the lattice which gives rise to different polarizations modes of the crystal along the two orthogonal primitive lattice vectors. These two polarization modes result in a net polar vector, which forms a chiral triad with the wavevector and the vector normal to the plane of spheres. The formation of this chiral triad is responsible for the observed circular dichroism, although the structure itself is intrinsically nonchiral.
In order to utilize the full potential of tailored flows of electromagnetic energy at the nanoscale, we need to understand its general behaviour given by its generic representation of interfering random waves. For applications in on-chip photonics as well as particle trapping, it is important to discern the topological features in the flow field between the commonly investigated cases of fully vectorial light fields and their 2D equivalents. We demonstrate the distinct difference between these cases in both the allowed topology of the flow-field and the spatial distribution of its singularities, given by their pair correlation function g(r). Specifically, we show that a random field confined to a 2D plane has a divergence-free flow-field and exhibits a liquid-like correlation, whereas its freely propagating counterpart has no clear correlation and features a transverse flow-field with the full range of possible 2D topologies around its singularities.