Optical information processing of the future is associated with a new generation of compact nanoscale optical devices operating entirely with light. Moreover, adaptive features such as self-guiding, reconfiguration and switching become more and more important. Nonlinear devices offer an enormous potential for these applications. Consequently, innovative concepts for all-optical communication and information technologies based on nonlinear effects in photonic-crystal physics and nanoscale devices as metamaterials are of high interest.

This book focuses on nonlinear optical phenomena in periodic media, such as photonic crystals, optically-induced, adaptive lattices, atomic lattices or metamaterials. The main purpose is to describe and overview new physical phenomena that result from the interplay between nonlinearities and structural periodicities and is a guide to actual and future developments for the expert reader in optical information processing, as well as in the physics of cold atoms in optical lattices.

Inhalt

Nonlinear Effects in Reduced-Dimensional Structures: From Wave Guide Arrays to Slow Light.- Nonlinear Effects in One-Dimensional Photonic Lattices.- Nonlinear Optical Waves in Liquid Crystalline Lattices.- Nonlinear Optics and Solitons in Photonic Crystal Fibres.- Spatial Switching of Slow Light in Periodic Photonic Structures.- Nonlinear Effects in Multidimensional Lattices: Solitons and Light Localization.- to Solitons in Photonic Lattices.- Complex Nonlinear Photonic Lattices: From Instabilities to Control.- Light Localization by Defects in Optically Induced Photonic Structures.- Polychromatic Light Localisation in Periodic Structures.- Periodic Structures for Matter Waves: From Lattices to Ratchets.- Bose-Einstein Condensates in 1D Optical Lattices: Nonlinearity and Wannier-Stark Spectra.- Transporting Cold Atoms in Optical Lattices with Ratchets: Mechanisms and Symmetries.- Atomic Bose-Einstein Condensates in Optical Lattices with Variable Spatial Symmetry.- Symmetry and Transport in a Rocking Ratchet for Cold Atoms.- Metamaterials: From Linear to Nonlinear Features.- Optical Metamaterials: Invisibility in Visible and Nonlinearities in Reverse.- Nonlinear Metamaterials.- Circuit Model of Gain in Metamaterials.- Discrete Breathers and Solitons in Metamaterials.