Simulation of field bifurcations in electrodynamic structures containing a nonlinear semiconductor medium exhibiting instability.

A strip-slot guiding structure (GS) containing a distributed semiconductor inclusion with a negative differential conductivity is considered. Instabilities and nonlinear effects observed during propagation of electromagnetic waves in such a structure are investigated via numerical analysis of branching points of solutions to the nonlinear Maxwell equations. The method of universal autonomous blocks with Floquet channels is applied to solve the 3D problem of diffraction of electromagnetic waves by a nonlinear semiconductor irregularity in a strip-slot GS. The solutions obtained describe frequency multiplication and generation of the GS fundamental mode near a branching point. The generation process is described as a function of the incident-wave amplitude. The bifurcation points of the nonlinear Maxwell operator are found numerically with allowance for bounding geometries. These points specify the self-oscillation frequencies in planar Gunn effect diodes in a strip-slot GS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]