Abstract:

We review recent theoretical and experimental in progress in the realisation of slow and stopped light by the 'trapped rainbow' principle in optical metamaterials featuring negative electromagnetic parameters (permittivity/permeability and/or refractive index). We explain how and why these structures can enable complete stopping of light even in the presence of disorder and, simultaneously, dissipative losses. Using full-wave numerical simulations we show that the incorporation of thin layers made of an active medium adjacently to the core layer of a negative-refractive-index waveguide can completely remove dissipative losses - in a slow-light regime where the effective index of the guided wave is negative. © 2010 SPIE.

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