11 research outputs found
Nonlinear Localization in Metamaterials
Metamaterials, i.e., artificially structured ("synthetic") media comprising
weakly coupled discrete elements, exhibit extraordinary properties and they
hold a great promise for novel applications including super-resolution imaging,
cloaking, hyperlensing, and optical transformation. Nonlinearity adds a new
degree of freedom for metamaterial design that allows for tuneability and
multistability, properties that may offer altogether new functionalities and
electromagnetic characteristics. The combination of discreteness and
nonlinearity may lead to intrinsic localization of the type of discrete
breather in metallic, SQUID-based, and symmetric metamaterials. We
review recent results demonstrating the generic appearance of breather
excitations in these systems resulting from power-balance between intrinsic
losses and input power, either by proper initialization or by purely dynamical
procedures. Breather properties peculiar to each particular system are
identified and discussed. Recent progress in the fabrication of low-loss,
active and superconducting metamaterials, makes the experimental observation of
breathers in principle possible with the proposed dynamical procedures.Comment: 19 pages, 14 figures, Invited (Review) Chapte
Observation of the exceptional-point-enhanced Sagnac effect
Exceptional points (EPs) are special spectral degeneracies of non-Hermitian Hamiltonians that govern the dynamics of open systems. At an EP, two or more eigenvalues, and the corresponding eigenstates, coalesce. Recently, it was predicted that operation of an optical gyroscope near an EP results in improved response to rotations. However, the performance of such a system has not been examined experimentally. Here we introduce a precisely controllable physical system for the study of non-Hermitian physics and nonlinear optics in high-quality-factor microresonators. Because this system dissipatively couples counter-propagating lightwaves within the resonator, it also functions as a sensitive gyroscope for the measurement of rotations. We use our system to investigate the predicted EP-enhanced Sagnac effect and observe a four-fold increase in the Sagnac scale factor by directly measuring rotations applied to the resonator. The level of enhancement can be controlled by adjusting the system bias relative to the EP, and modelling results confirm the observed enhancement. Moreover, we characterize the sensitivity of the gyroscope near the EP. Besides verifying EP physics, this work is important for the understanding of optical gyroscopes