Light propagation in binary kagome ribbons with evolving disorder.

By introducing evolving disorder in the binary kagome ribbons, we study the establishment of diffusive spreading of flat band states characterized by diffractionless propagation in regular periodic ribbons. Our numerical analysis relies on controlling strength and rate of change of disorder during light propagation while tailoring binarism of the kagome ribbons in order to isolate the flat band with the gap from the rest of the ribbon's eigenvalue spectrum and study systematically its influence on diffusion. We show that the flat band plays a dominant role in the establishment of the diffusion for a given strength and rate of change of disorder, whereas the rest of the ribbon's eigenvalue spectrum induces only quantitative differences in the light spreading regimes. Due to the universality of studied phenomena, our findings may be of interest in various disordered physical systems with flat spectral bands, ranging from photonics to ultracold matter systems and plasmonics.

Localized modes in nonlinear binary kagome ribbons.

The localized mode propagation in binary nonlinear kagome ribbons is investigated with the premise to ensure controlled light propagation through photonic lattice media. Particularity of the linear system characterized by the dispersionless flat band in the spectrum is the opening of new minigaps due to the "binarism." Together with the presence of nonlinearity, this determines the guiding mode types and properties. Nonlinearity destabilizes the staggered rings found to be nondiffracting in the linear system, but can give rise to dynamically stable ringlike solutions of several types: unstaggered rings, low-power staggered rings, hour-glass-like solutions, and vortex rings with high power. The type of solutions, i.e., the energy and angular momentum circulation through the nonlinear lattice, can be controlled by suitable initial excitation of the ribbon. In addition, by controlling the system "binarism" various localized modes can be generated and guided through the system, owing to the opening of the minigaps in the spectrum. All these findings offer diverse technical possibilities, especially with respect to the high-speed optical communications and high-power lasers.

Observation of discrete gap solitons in one-dimensional waveguide arrays with alternating spacings and saturable defocusing nonlinearity.

We consider, both experimentally and theoretically, the existence and stability of localized, symmetric, and antisymmetric gap solitons (GSs) in binary lattices of identical waveguides but with alternating spacings. Furthermore, the properties of surface GSs at the boundary of the lattice are explored.

Linear and nonlinear light propagation at the interface of two homogeneous waveguide arrays.

We investigate linear and nonlinear light propagation at the interface of two one-dimensional homogeneous waveguide arrays containing a single defect of different strength. For the linear case and in a limited region of the defect size, we find trapped staggered and unstaggered modes. In the nonlinear case, we study the dependence of power thresholds for discrete soliton formation in different channels as a function of defect strength. All experimental results are confirmed theoretically using an adequate discrete model.