Spatial nonlinearity in anisotropic metamaterial plasmonic slot waveguides

Mahmoud M. R. Elsawy (1) , Gilles Renversez (1)

1 ATHENA - ATHENA

We study the main nonlinear solutions of plasmonic slot waveguides made from an anisotropic metamate-rial core with a positive Kerr-type nonlinearity surrounded by two semi-infinite metal regions. First, we demonstrate that for a highly anisotropic diagonal elliptical core, the bifurcation threshold of the asymmetric mode is reduced from GW/m threshold for the isotropic case to 50 MW/m one indicating a strong enhancement of the spatial nonlinear effects, and that the slope of the dispersion curve of the asymmetric mode stays positive, at least near the bifurcation, suggesting a stable mode. Second, we show that for the hyperbolic case there is no physically meaningful asymmetric mode, and that the sign of the effective nonlinearity can become negative.

Keywords: Spatial solitons; Waveguides; Nonllinear plasmonics; Surface plasmons; Kerr effect; Metamaterials

Domains: Physics [physics]; Physics [physics]; Optics [physics.optics]; Nonlinear Sciences [physics]; Pattern Formation and Solitons [nlin.PS]; Engineering Sciences [physics]; Electromagnetism; Engineering Sciences [physics]; Optics / Photonic

Mahmoud M. R. Elsawy, Gilles Renversez. Spatial nonlinearity in anisotropic metamaterial plasmonic slot waveguides. 2016. ⟨hal-01360397⟩