119 research outputs found
Effect of microscopic disorder on magnetic properties of metamaterials
We analyze the effect of microscopic disorder on the macroscopic properties of composite metamaterials and study how weak statistically independent fluctuations of the parameters of the structure elements can modify their collective magnetic response and left-handed properties. We demonstrate that even a weak microscopic disorder may lead to a substantial modification of the metamaterial magnetic properties, and a 10% deviation in the parameters of the microscopic resonant elements may lead to a substantial suppression of the wave propagation in a wide frequency range. A noticeable suppression occurs also if more than 10% of the resonant magnetic elements possess strongly different properties, and in the latter case the defects can create an additional weak resonant line. These results are of a key importance for characterizing and optimizing novel composite metamaterials with the left-handed properties at terahertz and optical frequencies
Wave Function Shredding by Sparse Quantum Barriers
We discuss a model in which a quantum particle passes through
potentials arranged in an increasingly sparse way. For infinitely many barriers
we derive conditions, expressed in terms ergodic properties of wave function
phases, which ensure that the point and absolutely continuous parts are absent
leaving a purely singularly continuous spectrum. For a finite number of
barriers, the transmission coefficient shows extreme sensitivity to the
particle momentum with fluctuation in many different scales. We discuss a
potential application of this behavior for erasing the information carried by
the wave function.Comment: 4 pages ReVTeX with 3 epsf figure
Anderson localization in metamaterials and other complex media
We review some recent (mostly ours) results on the Anderson localization of
light and electron waves in complex disordered systems, including: (i)
left-handed metamaterials, (ii) magneto-active optical structures, (iii)
graphene superlattices, and (iv) nonlinear dielectric media. First, we
demonstrate that left-handed metamaterials can significantly suppress
localization of light and lead to an anomalously enhanced transmission. This
suppression is essential at the long-wavelength limit in the case of normal
incidence, at specific angles of oblique incidence (Brewster anomaly), and in
the vicinity of the zero-epsilon or zero-mu frequencies for dispersive
metamaterials. Remarkably, in disordered samples comprised of alternating
normal and left-handed metamaterials, the reciprocal Lyapunov exponent and
reciprocal transmittance increment can differ from each other. Second, we study
magneto-active multilayered structures, which exhibit nonreciprocal
localization of light depending on the direction of propagation and on the
polarization. At resonant frequencies or realizations, such nonreciprocity
results in effectively unidirectional transport of light. Third, we discuss the
analogy between the wave propagation through multilayered samples with
metamaterials and the charge transport in graphene, which enables a simple
physical explanation of unusual conductive properties of disordered graphene
superlatices. We predict disorder-induced resonances of the transmission
coefficient at oblique incidence of the Dirac quasiparticles. Finally, we
demonstrate that an interplay of nonlinearity and disorder in dielectric media
can lead to bistability of individual localized states excited inside the
medium at resonant frequencies. This results in nonreciprocity of the wave
transmission and unidirectional transport of light.Comment: 37 pages, 30 figures, Review pape
Soliton transmission through a disordered system
An exact formula for the transmission time in a disordered nonlinear soliton-bearing classical one-dimensional system is obtained
Quasiperiodic Envelope Solitons
We analyse nonlinear wave propagation and cascaded self-focusing due to
second-harmonic generation in Fibbonacci optical superlattices and introduce a
novel concept of nonlinear physics, the quasiperiodic soliton, which describes
spatially localized self-trapping of a quasiperiodic wave. We point out a link
between the quasiperiodic soliton and partially incoherent spatial solitary
waves recently generated experimentally.Comment: Submitted to PRL. 4 pages with 5 figure
Infrared Spectroscopy of Quantum Crossbars
Infrared (IR) spectroscopy can be used as an important and effective tool for
probing periodic networks of quantum wires or nanotubes (quantum crossbars,
QCB) at finite frequencies far from the Luttinger liquid fixed point. Plasmon
excitations in QCB may be involved in resonance diffraction of incident
electromagnetic waves and in optical absorption in the IR part of the spectrum.
Direct absorption of external electric field in QCB strongly depends on the
direction of the wave vector This results in two types of
dimensional crossover with varying angle of an incident wave or its frequency.
In the case of QCB interacting with semiconductor substrate, capacitive contact
between them does not destroy the Luttinger liquid character of the long wave
QCB excitations. However, the dielectric losses on a substrate surface are
significantly changed due to appearance of additional Landau damping. The
latter is initiated by diffraction processes on QCB superlattice and manifests
itself as strong but narrow absorption peaks lying below the damping region of
an isolated substrate.SubmiComment: Submitted to Phys. Rev.
Anderson Localization of Classical Waves in Weakly Scattering Metamaterials
We study the propagation and localization of classical waves in
one-dimensional disordered structures composed of alternating layers of left-
and right-handed materials (mixed stacks) and compare them to the structures
composed of different layers of the same material (homogeneous stacks). For
weakly scattering layers, we have developed an effective analytical approach
and have calculated the transmission length within a wide region of the input
parameters. When both refractive index and layer thickness of a mixed stack are
random, the transmission length in the long-wave range of the localized regime
exhibits a quadratic power wavelength dependence with the coefficients
different for mixed and homogeneous stacks. Moreover, the transmission length
of a mixed stack differs from reciprocal of the Lyapunov exponent of the
corresponding infinite stack. In both the ballistic regime of a mixed stack and
in the near long-wave region of a homogeneous stack, the transmission length of
a realization is a strongly fluctuating quantity. In the far long-wave part of
the ballistic region, the homogeneous stack becomes effectively uniform and the
transmission length fluctuations are weaker. The crossover region from the
localization to the ballistic regime is relatively narrow for both mixed and
homogeneous stacks. In mixed stacks with only refractive-index disorder,
Anderson localization at long wavelengths is substantially suppressed, with the
localization length growing with the wavelength much faster than for
homogeneous stacks. The crossover region becomes essentially wider and
transmission resonances appear only in much longer stacks. All theoretical
predictions are in an excellent agreement with the results of numerical
simulations.Comment: 19 pages, 16 figures, submitted to PR
Controlling soliton refraction in optical lattices
We show in the framework of the 1D nonlinear Schrödinger equation that the value of the refraction angle of a fundamental soliton beam passing through an optical lattice can be controlled by adjusting either the shape of an individual waveguide or the relative positions of the waveguides. In the case of the shallow refractive index modulation, we develop a general approach for the calculation of the refraction angle change. The shape of a single waveguide crucially affects the refraction direction due to the appearance of a structural form factor in the expression for the density of emitted waves. For a lattice of scatterers, wave-soliton interference inside the lattice leads to the appearance of an additional geometric form factor. As a result, the soliton refraction is more pronounced for the disordered lattices than for the periodic ones
Nonreciprocal Anderson Localization in Magneto-Optical Random Structures
We study, both analytically and numerically, disorder-induced localization of
light in random layered structures with magnetooptical materials. The Anderson
localization in such structures demonstrates nonreciprocal features in the
averaged localization length and individual transmission resonances. We employ
short-wavelength approximation where the localization effects are strong, and
consider both the Faraday and Voigt magnetooptical geometries. In the Faraday
geometry, the transmission is strongly nonreciprocal for the circularly
polarized waves, whereas in the Voigt geometry, the nonreciprocity is much
weaker, and it may appear only for the individual transmission resonances of
the TM-polarized waves.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure
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