Spatial mode-selective waveguide with hyperbolic cladding

Opt Lett. 2016 Sep 15;41(18):4285-8. doi: 10.1364/OL.41.004285.

Abstract

Hyperbolic metamaterials (HMMs) are anisotropic materials with a permittivity tensor that has both positive and negative eigenvalues. Here we report that by using a type II HMM as a cladding material, a waveguide that only supports higher-order modes can be achieved, while the lower-order modes become leaky and are absorbed in the HMM cladding. This counter-intuitive property can lead to novel application in optical communications and photonic integrated circuits. The loss in our HMM insulator-HMM (HIH) waveguide is smaller than that of similar guided modes in a metal-insulator-metal (MIM) waveguide.