Optical cavity with layered left-handed metamaterials

Metamaterials are artificial periodic structures. Their optical properties depend on the design of resonant elements that play the role of atoms in conventional materials. Thus novel and extraordinary properties can be achieved, among which is negative refractive index. At present negative refractive index metamaterials, or left-handed materials, were engineered in optical frequency range that enables their further application in optics and photonics. We investigate a novel type of an optical cavity containing layered structure with left-handed metamaterials. The formation conditions for spatial eigenmodes are derived. Waveguide eigenmodes can exist even in Fabry-Perot cavities, in contrast to conventional cavities. Alteration of the refractive index makes the diffraction spreading and phase shift compensation possible. Thus beam propagation in such periodic structure can be waveguide. The remarkable feature of this cavity is existence of the localized modes with an arbitrary amplitude field distribution in cross-section. The stability of such cavities is investigated. The obtained analytical results were confirmed by numerical simulations.