Anomalous diffraction in hyperbolic materials

作者:Alberucci Alessandro*; Jisha Chandroth P; Boardman Allan D; Assanto Gaetano
来源:Physical Review A, 2016, 94(3): 033830.
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevA.94.033830

摘要

We demonstrate that light is subject to anomalous (i.e., negative) diffraction when propagating in the presence of hyperbolic dispersion. We show that light propagation in hyperbolic media resembles the dynamics of a quantum particle of negative mass moving in a two-dimensional potential. The negative effective mass implies time reversal if the medium is homogeneous. Such property paves the way to diffraction compensation, i.e., spatial analog of dispersion compensating fibers in the temporal domain. At variance with materials exhibiting standard elliptic dispersion, in inhomogeneous hyperbolic materials light waves are pulled towards regions with a lower refractive index. In the presence of a Kerr-like optical response, bright (dark) solitons are supported by a negative (positive) nonlinearity.

  • 出版日期2016-9-16