Surface waves in uniaxially anisotropic left-handed materials

TL;DR

This paper investigates the existence and properties of surface waves and solitons at the interface between isotropic and uniaxially anisotropic left-handed materials, including conditions for their formation and energy flow characteristics.

Contribution

It provides analytical conditions for surface TM-mode existence and models surface optical solitons with quantum dot layers, incorporating realistic experimental parameters.

Findings

Surface waves exist when permittivity and permeability tensors are negative.

Explicit formulas for surface solitons depend on quantum dot and medium parameters.

The energy flow direction of solitons varies with quantum dot properties.

Abstract

The linear and nonlinear surface waves propagating along the interface separating isotropic conventional and uniaxially anisotropic left-handed materials is investigated. The conditions of the existence of surface TM-modes is determined. It is shown that surface waves can be formed when the components of the permittivity and permeability tensors of the uniaxially anisotropic left-handed materials are simultaneously negative. A transition layer sandwiched between connected media is described using a model of a two-dimensional gas of quantum dots. Explicit analytical expressions for a surface optical soliton of self-induced transparency in the presence of single and biexciton transitions depends on the magnetic permeability of the left-handed medium, are given with realistic parameters which can be reached in current experiments. It is shown that the sign of the total energy flow of the surface soliton depends on the parameters of the quantum dots and connected media.