Periodic domain inversion in crystals: 'designer' optical materials

Smectic Liquid Crystals: Materials with One-Dimensional, Periodic Order

Abstract. Smectic liquid crystals are materials formed by stacking deformable, fluid layers. Though smectics prefer to have flat, uniformly-spaced layers, boundary conditions can impose curvature on the layers. Since the layer spacing and curvature are intertwined, the problem of finding minimal configurations for the layers becomes highly nontrivial. We discuss various topological and geometri...

Optical limiting in a periodic materials with relaxational nonlinearity.

We numerically investigate counter-propagating beams in a one-dimensionally, periodic structure with non-instantaneous Kerr nonlinearity for the design of efficient optical limiters. The performance of the Photonic Band Gap optical limiter with different response times is compared with the instantaneous case. Dynamic range and the cutoff intensity can be improved over a range of relaxation times.

Optical Bistability in Periodic Nonlinear Structures Containing Left Handed Materials

We study the transmission properties of a nonlinear periodic structure containing alternating slabs of a nonlinear right-handed material and a linear left-handed material. We find that the transmission associated with the zero-averaged refractive-index gap exhibits a bistable characteristic that is relatively insensitive to incident angles. This is in contrast to the nonlinear behavior of the u...

Finite-Difference Time-Domain Simulation of Light Propagation in 2D Periodic and Quasi-Periodic Photonic Structures

Ultra-short pulse is a promising technology for achieving ultra-high data rate transmission which is required to follow the increased demand of data transport over an optical communication system. Therefore, the propagation of such type of pulses and the effects that it may suffer during its transmission through an optical waveguide has received a great deal of attention in the recent years. We...

Periodic absorption in monoclinic crystals