Generation, amplification, frequency conversion and reversal of propagation of THz photons in nonlinear hyperbolic metamaterial

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel hyperbolic metamaterial supporting multiple electromagnetic modes, enabling enhanced three-wave mixing, optical amplification, and frequency conversion of THz photons, demonstrated through numerical simulations.

Contribution

It proposes a new metamaterial design supporting co-directed phase velocities and contra-directed energy fluxes, enabling advanced nonlinear optical processes at THz frequencies.

Findings

Enhanced three-wave mixing observed in simulations

Significant optical parametric amplification demonstrated

Efficient frequency conversion of THz photons achieved

Abstract

The metamaterial is proposed which supports a mixture of three or more normal and backward electromagnetic modes with equal co-directed phase velocities and mutually contra-directed energy fluxes. This enables extraordinary three-wave mixing, greatly enhanced optical parametric amplification and frequency-changing generation of entangled photons in the reflection direction. Proof-of-principle numerical simulation of such processes is presented based on the particular example of the wave-guided THz waves contra-propagating in the metamaterial made of carbon nanotubes.