UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY Slow Light in Metamaterial Waveguides

Metamaterials, which are materials engineered to possess novel optical properties, have been increasingly studied. The ability to fabricate metamaterials has sparked an interest in determining possible applications. We investigate using a metamaterial for boundary engineering in waveguides. A metamaterial-clad cylindrical waveguide is used to provide confinement for an op-tical signal, thereby increasing the local electromagnetic energy density. We show that metamaterial-clad dielectric waveguides have unique optical properties, including new modes, which we call hybrid modes. These modes have properties of both ordinary guided modes and surface plasmon-polariton modes. We show that for certain metamaterial parameters, the surface plasmon-polariton modes of a metamaterial-clad guide have less propagation loss than those of a metal-clad waveg-uide with the same permittivity. This low-loss mode is exploited for all-optical control of weak fields. Embedding three-level Λ atoms in the dielectric core of a metamaterial-clad waveguide allows the use of electromagnetically induced transparency to control an optica