Anomalous transient amplification of waves in non-normal photonic media

K. G. Makris, L. Ge, H. E. Türeci

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

68 Scopus citations

Abstract

Dissipation is a ubiquitous phenomenon in dynamical systems encountered in nature because no finite system is fully isolated from its environment. In optical systems, a key challenge facing any technological application has traditionally been the mitigation of optical losses. Recent work has shown that a new class of optical materials that consist of a precisely balanced distribution of loss and gain can be exploited to engineer novel functionalities for propagating and filtering electromagnetic radiation. Here we show a generic property of optical systems that feature an unbalanced distribution of loss and gain, described by non-normal operators, namely, that an overall lossy optical system can transiently amplify certain input signals by several orders of magnitude. We present a mathematical framework to analyze the dynamics of wave propagation in media with an arbitrary distribution of loss and gain, and we construct the initial conditions to engineer such non-normal power amplifiers. Our results point to a new design space for engineered optical systems employed in photonics and quantum optics.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number041044
JournalPhysical Review X
Volume4
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - 2014

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • General Physics and Astronomy

Keywords

  • Optics
  • Photonics

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