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Using the equifrequency surfaces (EFS) to describe negative refractions in left-handed materials (LHMs) and photonic crystals (PCs), negative phase and negative group refractive indexes in LHMs were compared with positive phase and negative group refractive indexes in PCs. The refractive indexes in PCs were dependent on frequencies and incident angles of electromagnetic wave, while indexes in LHMs were constant in the left-handed region. Furthermore, the phase compensating effect resulting from the negative phase refractive index was addressed to distinguish the perfect lens made of LHMs from the superlens realized in the all angle negative refraction (AANR) region of PCs.

The paper is concerned with the propagation characteristics of TE surface waves in a planar wave-guide structure of a lateral antiferromagnetic-non magnetic super lattices (LANS) film bounded by a nonlinear dielectric cover and a left-handed substrate (LHM). In LHM substrate both permittivity and magnetic permeability are negative in definite frequency range. We study nonlinear dispersion properties of the TE surface waves and illustrate the power flow variation with the wave index in three different cases, i.e., when both permittivity and magnetic permeability are negative, when permittivity is negative and permeability is positive, and when both permittivity and magnetic permeability are positive.

In the first case, we found that surface waves are backward traveling and the wave power variation with the wave index shows bistability behavior. We also found that by increasing the film thickness the waves turn from forward to backward traveling in the second case. In the third case, surface waves are always forward traveling.

In this article, we present an experimental and numerical study of novel optical properties of two-dimensional dielectric photonic crystals (PCs) which exhibit negative refraction. We investigate two mechanisms which utilize the band structure of the PC to generate a negative effective index of refraction (n_eff<0) and demonstrate the negative refraction experimentally. To the isotropic extend of n_eff, different PC slab structures are employed to focus the radiation of a point source. It is shown experimentally that the PC can generate an image of the source with subwavelength resolution in the vicinity of the PC interface. Using a different PC, one can also obtain a far field focusing. In the latter case, we explicitly show the flat lens behavior of the structure. These examples indicate that PC-based lenses can surpass limitations of conventional lenses and lead to novel optics applications.

The four-wave mixing (FWM) effect in a so-called left-handed material (LHM) with a third-order nonlinear response is studied. The theoretical models for the wavelength conversion (WC) and parametric amplification (PA) based on the FWM in the LHM are established when the signal falls in the frequency range of backward or forward wave. Analytical formulas for the WC efficiency and PA gain are derived. The influences of the pump powers, the phase mismatch, and the interaction length on the performances of the WC and PA are analyzed. The phase-match dependence of the performance is reduced by carefully controlling the pump powers.