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Nonreciprocity and one-way propagation of optical signals are crucial for modern nanophotonic technology, and typically achieved using magneto-optical effects requiring large magnetic biases. Here we suggest a fundamentally novel approach to achieve unidirectional propagation of surface plasmon-polaritons (SPPs) at metal-dielectric interfaces. We employ a direct electric current in metals, which produces a Doppler frequency shift of SPPs due to the uniform drift of electrons. This tilts the SPP dispersion, enabling one-way propagation, as well as zero and negative group velocities. The results are demonstrated for planar interfaces and cylindrical nanowire waveguides.

We demonstrate the enhancement of magnetic dipole spontaneous emission from Eu 3+ ions by an engineered plasmonic nanostructure that controls the electromagnetic environment of the emitter. Using an optical microscope setup, an enhancement in the intensity of the Eu 3+ magnetic dipole emission was observed for emitters located in close vicinity to a gold nanohole array designed to support plasmonic resonances overlapping with the emission spectrum of the ions.

We derive general coupled-mode equations describing the nonlinear interaction of electromagnetic modes in periodic media with loss and gain. Our approach is rigorously based on the Lorentz reciprocity theorem, and it can be applied to a broad range of metal-dielectric photonic structures, including plasmonic waveguides and metamaterials. We verify that our general results agree with the previous analysis of particular cases, and predict novel effects on self- and cross-phase modulation in multilayer nonlinear fishnet metamaterials.

We propose and theoretically verify an efficient mechanism of broadband coupling between incident light and on-chip dielectric slot waveguide by employing a tapered plasmonic nanoantenna. The nanoantenna receives free space radiation and couples it to a dielectric slot waveguide with the efficiency of up to 20% in a broad spectral range, having a small footprint as compared with the currently used narrowband dielectric grating couplers. We argue that the frequency selective properties of such nanoantennas also allow for using them as ultrasmall on-chip multiplexer/demultiplexer devices.

We demonstrate that optically driven two-dimensional lattices of nonlinear metal nanoparticles can support a variety of dissipative localized modes including Faraday ripples, trapped and walking solitons, oscillons, and switching waves connecting different polarization states.

We study the scattering of normally incident waves by core-shell nanowires, which support both electric and magnetic resonances. Within such nanowires, for p-polarized incident waves, each electric resonance corresponds to two degenerate scattering channels while the magnetic resonance corresponds to only one channel. Consequently, when the electric dipole (ED) and magnetic dipole (MD) are tuned to overlap spectrally, the magnitude of the ED is twice that of the magnetic one, leading to a pair of angles of vanishing scattering. We further demonstrate that the scattering features of nanowires are polarization dependent, and vanishing scattering angles also can be induced by Fano resonances due to the interference of higher-order electric modes with the broad MD mode.

We demonstrate that an interplay between diffraction and defocusing nonlinearity can support stable self-similar plasmonic waves with a parabolic profile. Simplicity of a parabolic shape combined with the corresponding parabolic spatial phase distribution creates opportunities for controllable manipulation of plasmons through a combined action of diffraction and nonlinearity.

We theoretically study the cascaded four-wave mixing (FWM) in broadband tapered plasmonic nanoantennas. In comparison with nonlinear bulk medium they demonstrate a 300-fold increase in nonlinear frequency conversion detected in the main lobe of the nanoantenna far-field pattern. This is achieved by tuning the elements of the nanoantenna to resonance frequencies involved in the FWM interaction. Our findings have a potentially broad application in ultrafast nonlinear spectroscopy, sensing, on-chip optical frequency conversion, nonlinear optical metamaterials, and photon sources.

We predict and demonstrate the generation of a plasmonic hot spot on the surface of a metal film by the interference of two Airy surface plasmons. We show that the position of the hot spot can be controlled by the distance between the excitation gratings as well as by the phase front of the initial excitation. The observed effect constitutes a planar analogy to Airy beam autofocusing and offers new opportunities for spatially resolved surface plasmon sensing and optical surface tweezers.

We demonstrate that light propagation in waveguide arrays that include PT-symmetric structures can exhibit strongly nonlocal sensitivity to topology of the array at fixed other parameters. We consider an array composed of lossless waveguides, that includes a pair of PT-symmetric waveguides with balanced gain and loss, and reveal that PT-symmetry breaking thresholds are different for planar and circular array configurations. These results demonstrate that PT-symmetric structures can offer new regimes for optical beam shaping compared to conservative structures.

This letter reports the first experimental observation, to our knowledge, of optical vector solitons composed of two incoherently coupled vortex components. We employ nematic liquid crystal to generate stable vector solitons with counterrotating vortices and hidden vorticity. In contrast, the solitons with explicit vorticity and corotating vortex components show azimuthal splitting., (© 2012 Optical Society of America)

We demonstrate the fabrication by direct laser writing and the operation of a directional coupler containing Bragg gratings in each waveguide. We achieve high-precision control over the longitudinal shift between the gratings, which feature first-order Bragg resonance at telecommunication wavelengths. We observe fundamental differences between light transmission characteristics in couplers with unshifted and shifted gratings in agreement with theoretical predictions.

We experimentally study the fields close to an interface between two photonic crystal waveguides that have different dispersion properties. After the transition from a waveguide in which the group velocity of light is v(g) ~ c/10 to a waveguide in which it is v(g) ~ c/100, we observe a gradual increase in the field intensity and the lateral spreading of the mode. We attribute this evolution to the existence of a weakly evanescent mode that exponentially decays away from the interface. We compare this to the situation where the transition between the waveguides only leads to a minor change in group velocity and show that, in that case, the evolution is absent. Furthermore, we apply novel numerical mode extraction techniques to confirm experimental results.

We demonstrate, both theoretically and numerically, the efficient manipulation of plasmonic Airy beams in linear optical potentials produced by a wedged metal-dielectric-metal structure. By varying the angle between the metallic plates, we can accelerate, compensate, or reverse the self-deflection of the plasmonic Airy beams without compromising the self-healing properties. We also show that in the linear potentials the Airy plasmons of different wavelengths could be routed into different directions, creating new opportunities for optical steering and manipulation.

We studied nonlinear effects in plasmonic metal film waveguides and couplers stimulated by third-order optical response due to ponderomotive metal nonlinearities. We analyzed the structure and dispersion of nonlinear plasmonic guided modes and predicted the bifurcations and symmetry breaking of nonlinear modes for the critical powers, depending on the structure dimensions.

We report on the first (to our knowledge) experimental observation of higher-order modes guided by soliton-induced waveguides in nematic liquid crystals. We find that the nematicon waveguides operate in a bounded power region specific to each guided mode. Below this region, the guided beams diffract; above this region, the mode mixing and coupling give rise to an unstable output.

We propose a scheme for an optical limiter and switch of the transmitted light intensity in an array of subwavelength metallic slits placed on a nonlinear Kerr-type dielectric substrate of finite thickness, where the geometrical parameters are designed for operation at telecom wavelengths. Our approach is based on the abrupt changes of the output light intensity observed in these systems near transmission minima.

We propose and analyze an on-chip all-optical dynamic tuning scheme for coupled nonlinear resonators employing a single control beam injected in parallel with a signal beam. We show that the nonlinear Kerr response can be used to dynamically switch the spectral properties between a "dark state" and electromagnetically induced transparency configurations. Such a scheme can be realized in integrated optical applications for pulse trapping and delaying.

We study experimentally an electrically pumped GaAs-based bandgap structure based on a vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL). We demonstrate that a microcavity embedded into this bandgap VCSEL structure supports localized optical modes without any holding beam. We propose a model of surface-structured VCSELs based on a reduced dissipative wave equation for describing electromagnetic modes in such semiconductor cavities and analyze a crossover between linear and nonlinear solitonlike cavity modes.

We demonstrate experimentally a transition from nonlinear beam trapping to defocusing in a two-dimensional periodic photonic structures by varying the modulation depth of the lattice. The observed effect illustrates the fundamental crossover from discrete to cw transport mechanisms. At the threshold modulation, the output beam is highly sensitive to refractive index and power variations, which can be potentially applied for high-sensitivity refractive index or temperature sensing.

We study nonlinear binary arrays composed of parity-time-symmetric optical waveguides with gain and loss. We demonstrate that such nonlinear binary lattices support stable discrete solitons, which can be adiabatically tuned and switched through nonlinear symmetry breaking by varying gain and loss parameters.

We analyze localization of light in honeycomb photonic lattices restricted in one dimension, which can be regarded as an optical analog of graphene nanoribbons. We discuss the effect of lattice topology on the properties of discrete solitons excited inside the lattice and at its edges. We discuss a type of soliton bistability, geometry-induced bistability, in the lattices of a finite extent.

We experimentally study light localization at phase-slip waveguides and at the intersection of phase slips in a two-dimensional (2D) square photonic lattice. Such systems allow for the observation of a variety of effects, including the existence of spatially localized modes for low powers, the generation of strongly localized states in the form of discrete bulk and surface solitons, as well as a crossover between one-dimensional and 2D localization.

We study numerically the interaction of two counterpropagating (CP) optical beams near the boundary of a truncated one-dimensional photonic lattice. We demonstrate that the mutual coupling of beams suppresses the effective repulsion from the lattice edge, resulting in the formation of CP surface solitons. Such localized beams may propagate in the same, as well as in neighboring, waveguides. We also reveal that the lattice disorder reduces substantially the threshold power for the formation of CP surface states.

We study experimentally the interaction of spatial optical solitons with curved dielectric surfaces in unbiased nematic liquid crystals. We demonstrate that this interaction depends on the curvature of the surface and the walk-off, and it can be employed for efficient routing and control of the soliton trajectories. We also observe a large-angle total internal reflection of the soliton beam from an interface between liquid crystal and air.

We theoretically and experimentally study the nonlinear propagation of polychromatic light in curved waveguide arrays. We show that at moderate light powers the nonlinear self-action breaks the left-right symmetry of the polychromatic beam, resulting in the separation of different spectral components owing to the wavelength-dependent spatial shift. At high light powers a diffraction-managed polychromatic soliton is formed. These results demonstrate new possibilities for tunable demultiplexing and spatial filtering of supercontinuum light.

We analyze the conical second-harmonic generation via Cerenkov-type phase matching in two-dimensional decagonal nonlinear photonic quasi-crystals for linear, circular, and elliptical polarized fundamental beams. Depending on the polarization state, we observe either centrosymmetric or noncentrosymmetric intensity modulation of the second-harmonic rings. We explain this effect by employing the concept of effective quadratic nonlinearity combined with the hexagonal symmetry of the individual ferroelectric domains.

We demonstrate that the spatial profiles of both propagating and evanescent Bloch modes in a periodic structure can be extracted from a single measurement of an electric field at the specified optical wavelength. We develop a systematic extraction procedure by extending the concepts of high-resolution spectral methods previously developed for temporal data series to take into account the symmetry properties of Bloch modes simultaneously at all spatial locations. We illustrate the application of our method to a photonic crystal waveguide interface and confirm its robustness in the presence of noise.

We analyze stability of the TM polarized optical solitons and nonlinear guided waves localized at a metal-dielectric interface. We demonstrate, both analytically and numerically, that the spatial solitons can experience vectorial transverse modulational instability that leads to the generation of arrays of two-dimensional TM polarized self-trapped localized beams. In a sharp contrast, we reveal that the transverse instability is completely eliminated for nonlinear surface plasmons.

We describe theoretically and study experimentally nonlinear surface waves at the edge of a modulated waveguide array with a surface defect and a self-defocusing nonlinearity. We fabricate such structures in a LiNbO(3) crystal and demonstrate the beam switching to different output waveguides with a change of the light intensity due to nonlinear coupling between the linear surface modes supported by the array.

We analyze the existence and stability of two-component vector solitons in nematic liquid crystals for which one of the components carries angular momentum and describes a vortex beam. We demonstrate that the nonlocal, nonlinear response can dramatically enhance the field coupling leading to the stabilization of the vortex beam when the amplitude of the second beam exceeds some threshold value. We develop a variational approach to describe this effect analytically.

We study theoretically and verify experimentally the detailed dynamics of spin-to-orbital angular momentum conversion for a circularly polarized Gaussian beam propagating along the optical axis of a uniaxial crystal. We extend the results to the case of white-light beams when each of the spectral components undergoes its own wavelength-dependent angular momentum conversion process.

We analyze experimentally light scattering from chi(2) nonlinear gratings and observe two types of second-harmonic frequency-scattering processes. The first process is identified as Raman-Nath type nonlinear diffraction that is explained by applying only transverse phase-matching conditions. The angular position of this type of diffraction is defined by the ratio of the second-harmonic wavelength and the grating period. In contrast, the second type of nonlinear scattering process is explained by the longitudinal phase matching only, being insensitive to the nonlinear grating period.

We demonstrate experimentally that a one-dimensional photonic crystal with a homeotropic nematic liquid crystal defect behaves as a polarization-sensitive nonlinear all-optical device. We study statics and dynamics of the nonlinear optical response for linearly and circularly polarized beams and show enhanced light sensitivity and polarization self-modulation effects.

We study, analytically and numerically, reflection and transmission of an arbitrarily polarized vortex beam on an interface separating two dielectric media and derive general expressions for linear and angular Goos-Hänchen (GH) and Imbert-Fedorov shifts. We predict a novel vortex-induced GH shift and also reveal a direct connection between the spin-induced angular shifts and the vortex-induced linear shifts.

We demonstrate, both theoretically and experimentally, the existence of nonlocal gap solitons in two-dimensional periodic photonic structures with defocusing thermal nonlinearity. We employ liquid-infiltrated photonic crystal fibers and show how the system geometry can modify the effective response of a nonlocal medium and the properties of two-dimensional gap solitons.

We analyze localization of light at the interfaces separating square and hexagonal photonic lattices, as recently realized experimentally for two-dimensional laser-written waveguides in silica glass with self-focusing nonlinearity [Opt. Lett.33, 663 (2008)]. We find the conditions for the existence of linear and nonlinear surface states substantially influenced by the lattice topology, and study the effect of different symmetries and couplings on the stability of two-dimensional interface solitons.

We study the properties of surface solitons generated at the edge of a semi-infinite photonic lattice in nonlinear quadratic media, namely two-color surface lattice solitons. We analyze the impact of phase mismatch on the existence and stability of nonlinear surface modes and find novel classes of two-color twisted surface solitons, which are stable in a large domain of their existence.

We demonstrate experimentally the formation of polychromatic single- and double-charge optical vortex solitons by employing a lithium niobate crystal as a nonlinear medium with defocusing nonlinearity. We study the wavelength dependence of the vortex core localization and observe self-trapping of polychromatic vortices with a bandwidth spanning over more than 70 nm for single-charge and 180 nm for double-charge vortex solitons.

We study light localization at a phase-slip defect created by two semi-infinite mismatched identical arrays of coupled optical waveguides. We demonstrate that the nonlinear defect modes possess the specific properties of both nonlinear surface modes and discrete solitons. We analyze the stability of the localized modes and their generation in both linear and nonlinear regimes.

We study the second-harmonic generation via transversely matched interaction of two counterpropagating ultrashort pulses in chi(2) photonic structures. We show that the emitted second-harmonic wave attains the form of spatially expanding toroid with the initial thickness given by the cross correlation of the pulses. We demonstrate the formation of such toroidal waves in crystals with random ferroelectric domains as well as in annularly poled nonlinear photonic structures.

We demonstrate the existence of a broad class of higher-order rotating spatial solitons in nonlocal nonlinear media. We employ the generalized Hermite-Laguerre-Gaussian ansatz for constructing multivortex soliton solutions and study numerically their dynamics and stability. We discuss in detail the tripole soliton carrying two spiraling phase dislocations, or self-trapped optical vortices.

We implement experimentally a simple method for accurate measurements of phase distributions of scalar light fields. The method is based on the polarimetric technique for recording the polarization maps of vector fields, where coaxial superposition of orthogonally polarized reference and signal beams allows the signal phase to be reconstructed from the polarization map of the total field. We demonstrate this method by resolving topologically neutral pairs of closely positioned vortices in a speckle field and recovering the positions of vortices within a Laguerre-Gaussian beam with the topological charge three.

We analyze spatiotemporal light localization in truncated two-dimensional photonic lattices and demonstrate the existence of two-dimensional surface light bullets localized in the lattice corners or the edges. We study the families of the spatiotemporal surface solitons and their properties such as bistability and compare them with the modes located deep inside the photonic lattice.

We study surface modes at the edge of a semi-infinite chirped photonic lattice in the framework of an effective discrete nonlinear model. We demonstrate that the lattice chirp can change dramatically the conditions for the mode localization near the surface, and we find numerically the families of discrete surface solitons in this case. Such solitons do not require any minimum power to exist provided the chirp parameter exceeds some critical value. We also analyze how the chirp modifies the interaction of a soliton with the lattice edge.

We analyze spatiotemporal light localization at the interface separating two different periodic photonic lattices. We demonstrate the existence of a novel class of continuous-discrete spatiotemporal solitons propagating along the interface, including hybrid staggered-unstaggered discrete light bullets with tails belonging to spectral gaps of different types.

We study experimentally and theoretically the nonlocal response of a medium with thermal nonlinearity and show that despite its inherently infinite range it can be accurately characterized by a well-defined nonlocal response function. We retrieve the shape of this function and analyze its transformation with the change of boundaries.

We study propagation and switching of slow-light pulses in nonlinear couplers with phase-shifted Bragg gratings. We demonstrate that power-controlled nonlinear self-action of light can be used to compensate for dispersion-induced broadening of pulses through the formation of gap solitons, to control pulse switching in the coupler, and to tune the propagation velocity.

We introduce a novel class of stable lattice solitons with a complex phase structure composed of many single-charge discrete vortices in a triangular photonic lattice. We demonstrate that such nonlinear self-trapped states are linked to the resonant Bloch modes, which bear a honeycomb pattern of phase dislocations.

We study Zener tunneling in two-dimensional photonic lattices and derive, for the case of hexagonal symmetry, the generalized Landau-Zener-Majorana model describing resonant interaction between high-symmetry points of the photonic spectral bands. We demonstrate that this effect can be employed for the generation of Floquet-Bloch modes and verify the model by direct numerical simulations of the tunneling effect.