Transition from slow and frozen to superluminal and backward light through loss or gain in dispersion-engineered waveguides

Thomas P. White and Andrey A. Sukhorukov
Phys. Rev. A 85, 043819 – Published 11 April 2012

Abstract

We describe the generic effects of loss or gain on pulse propagation in photonic-crystal and plasmonic waveguides that support “frozen” or “in-band” slow light at dispersion inflection points in the absence of loss (or gain). Using an analytical perturbation theory, we find that propagating and evanescent modes hybridize when loss exceeds a certain threshold, resulting in a reduced attenuation rate and switching from slow to superluminal velocity. Numerical simulations for photonic-crystal waveguides reveal the dynamic nature of this transition with forward-backward pulse velocity oscillations for loss above the threshold. Importantly, we show that the light intensity is enhanced close to the input end of the waveguide even under strong material losses, indicating the potential for slow-light enhancement of optical effects, even in such lossy waveguides.

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  • Received 8 October 2011

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.85.043819

©2012 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Thomas P. White1,2,* and Andrey A. Sukhorukov1

  • 1Nonlinear Physics Centre and Centre for Ultrahigh-Bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems (CUDOS), Research School of Physics and Engineering, Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 0200, Australia
  • 2Laser Physics Centre, Research School of Physics and Engineering, Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 0200, Australia

  • *thomas.white@anu.edu.au; Current address: Centre for Sustainable Energy Systems, Research School of Engineering, Australian National University, ACT 0200, Australia.

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Vol. 85, Iss. 4 — April 2012

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