Abstract

In recent years a novel direction of optical research is being developed – optics of parity-time-symmetric (PT-symmetric) media [1]. The similarity between the quantum-mechanical Schrodinger equation for the complex potential and the wave equation for the electric field in the medium possessing complex permittivity, i.e. in the medium with gain and loss, enabled extrapolating results, obtained from resolving the quantum-mechanical problems with the pseudo-Hermitian operator, to the optical problems of light propagation and scattering in non-conservative media [2,3]. Propagating PT-symmetric modes, asymmetry of transmission in the case of Bragg geometry of diffraction, when the input and output surfaces are swapped, spontaneous decay of PT-symmetric modes were observed in these structures.

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