Nonlinear and magnetooptic light control in photonic metamaterial waveguides and superfocusing

Summary form only given. The major global initiative that is addressing metamaterials in the optical frequency domain must now involve nonlinearity and must include the possibility of external control. This presentation will provide an elegant route to the inclusion of nonlinearity and waveguide complexity, through original forms of transformations and special choices of metamaterials, such as those classed as hyperbolic. All of this will be framed within a magnetooptic environment that deploys externally applied magnetic field orientations to direct light for energy capture, environmental and medical purposes. The history of optical solitons is fascinating and any theory of these has a weakly guiding foundation. Vortex generation and propagation properties have also a beautiful history, and the possibility of generating them together with magnetooptic control in plasmonic metamaterials together with diffraction-management will be discussed in detail. An emphasis will be placed on the fact that spatial solitons have a lot of application possibilities, especially when placed into the context of materials being used in a light-controlling light environment that is suitable for optical chips of the future. The dramatic advantage of using magnetooptics is emphasized and complicated structures will be examined. The general theory of magnetooptic waveguides embraces Cotton-Mouton, Polar and Faraday orientations. A nonlinear electromagnetic field (energy) concentrator is also considered, for cylindrically symmetric systems and a new method of investigation proves that superfocusing must be expected. The techniques involve complex geometrical optics and the full-wave nonlinear solutions. The superfocusing leads to a dramatic appearance of “hot spots”. A new form of switching is found when the input field intensity exceeds some “threshold” value. The control of light propagating in complex waveguides is an immensely important global topic and nonlinearity is a critical tool for ultimate device control [1]. In a nonlinear context, the use of metamaterials is seminal to the development of these new devices. It will be shown that changes to the boundary conditions, due to the presence of effective media, permit even modest amounts of power to initiate elegant control of the effective group velocity. A new dawn of integrated circuits is beginning to emerge. Magnetooptics [2,3] is a discipline that is also known, globally, in other contexts, to be a powerful mechanism for control, so it is important to add its influence to metamaterial complex systems. Through magnetooptics, many novel applications emerge but when combined with, for example, metamaterials with a permittivity designed to be near to zero, the future for nonlinear integrated systems looks very exciting. Novel techniques, involving transformations and complex geometrical optics, coupled to full-wave simulations, will be used to design completely new forms of nonlinearly controlled metamaterial energy concentrators [4] in the electromagnetic domain. It will be shown that special boundary conditions emerge that lead to the establishment of unique energy ‘hotspots’. A nonlinear energy concentrator will be demonstrated which shows that power-driven switching occurs with great precision. Finally, a full theory of nonlinear magnetooptic transformation optics will be outlined.