Dispersion properties of coupled waveguides with loss and gain: A full-vectorial analysis

0428567 - ÚFE 2015 RIV US eng J - Článek v odborném periodiku
Čtyroký, Jiří
Dispersion properties of coupled waveguides with loss and gain: A full-vectorial analysis.
Optical and Quantum Electronics. Roč. 46, č. 3 (2014), s. 465-475. ISSN 0306-8919. E-ISSN 1572-817X
Grant CEP: GA ČR(CZ) GAP205/10/0046
Institucionální podpora: RVO:67985882
Klíčová slova: Optical waveguide theory * Photonic switching * Fourier modal method
Kód oboru RIV: JA - Elektronika a optoelektronika, elektrotechnika
Impakt faktor: 0.987, rok: 2014

Waveguide structures with a balance of loss and gain have been frequently discussed in the photonic community not only as photonic analogues of quantum-mechanical systems with parity-time (PT) symmetry (breaking), but also as components with potentially interesting technical applications. In this contribution, properties of mutually coupled photonic waveguides with loss and gain are numerically analyzed using our proprietary full-vectorial Fourier modal method. Beside the classical case of a directional coupler with a balance of loss and gain, more general waveguide coupler structures exhibiting the behaviour analogous to PT-symmetry breaking, potentially applicable for photonic switching, are analyzed, too. For applications, simultaneous mutually balanced change of both loss and gain is evidently impractical. For a directional coupler structure with loss in one channel and gain in the other channel it is shown by rigorous numerical modelling that the behaviour analogous to PT-symmetry breaking can be realized by varying gain (or loss) only. Finally, it is confirmed by rigorous numerical modelling that the exceptional point does exist also in a very high-contrast asymmetric structure of a plasmonic directional coupler with strongly localized gain in one channel
Trvalý link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0233891