Inhibition of light tunneling in waveguide arrays

Phys Rev Lett. 2009 Apr 17;102(15):153901. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.102.153901. Epub 2009 Apr 13.

Abstract

We report the observation of almost perfect light tunneling inhibition at the edge and inside laser-written waveguide arrays due to band collapse. When the refractive index of the guiding channels is harmonically modulated along the propagation direction and out-of-phase in adjacent guides, light is trapped in the excited waveguide over a long distance due to resonances. The phenomenon can be used for tuning the localization threshold power.