PT-Symmetry of Multimode Waveguides: A Tool for Multichannel Communication

H. Benisty (1) , Anatole Lupu (2) , Aloyse Degiron (2)

1 Laboratoire Charles Fabry / Naphel
2 IEF - Institut d'électronique fondamentale

The idea of Parity-Time symmetry is to exploit the special eigenvalues of coupled modes experiencing a map of balanced gain and losses. We consider multimode waveguides with transverse PT-symmetry, hence we have N parallel stripe pairs (one gain stripe and one loss stripe) in the waveguide. The evolution of eigenmodes and eigenvalues in clusters of 2N modes that undergo N successive exceptional points is evidenced for realistic and idealised structures. Targeting a regime just above an exceptional point allows a pair of modes to be selected. We show the potential for selecting such modes with a good rejection against other modes, in comparison of non PT-symmetric schemes. This could become a tool for multichannel communication.

Domains: Physics [physics]; Physics [physics]; Optics [physics.optics]

H. Benisty, Anatole Lupu, Aloyse Degiron. PT-Symmetry of Multimode Waveguides: A Tool for Multichannel Communication. 17th International Conference on Transparent Optical Networks (ICTON 2015), Jul 2015, Budapest, Hungary. ⟨10.1109/ICTON.2015.7193377⟩. ⟨hal-01714367⟩