Trains of envelope solitons in nonlinear left-handed transmission line media

Alexander B. Kozyrev and Daniel W. van der Weide Citation: Appl. Phys. Lett. 91, 254111 (2007); doi: 10.1063/1.2826282 View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.2826282 View Table of Contents: http://apl.aip.org/resource/1/APPLAB/v91/i25 Published by the AIP Publishing LLC.

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APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS 91, 254111 2007

Trains of envelope solitons in nonlinear left-handed transmission line media

Alexander B. Kozyreva and Daniel W. van der Weide
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of WisconsinMadison, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA

Received 18 October 2007; accepted 29 November 2007; published online 19 December 2007 We report the experimental observation of the self-generated stationary trains of envelope solitons in the left-handed nonlinear transmission line metamaterials. The trains of both bright or dark solitons, as well as switching between them, have been experimentally demonstrated in short transmission lines exhibiting strong and fast nonlinearity and strong anomalous dispersion, when pumped with a continuous wave signal. 2007 American Institute of Physics. DOI: 10.1063/1.2826282 Metamaterials are articial structures that are designed to exhibit specic electromagnetic properties required for different applications but not commonly found in nature. The methodology of the synthesis of materials composed of micro- and nanostructured components that mimic electromagnetic response of individual atom and molecules metaatoms and metamolecules has proven to be very productive and resulted recently in the development of metamaterials exhibiting strong magnetic response at microwave and optical frequencies and negative refractive index both impossible in conventional real-world materials. Most studies of negative index materials, which simultaneously exhibit both negative permittivity and permeability1 and also known as left-handed metamaterials,2 have been concerned with the linear regime of wave propagation and have inspired many applications, which were unthinkable in the past.1,3 However, materials that combine nonlinearity with the anomalous dispersion exhibited by left-handed LH media give rise to a new class of phenomena and promising applications.46 We consider left-handed nonlinear transmission lines LH NLTLs as the simplest systems that would allow us to combine anomalous dispersion with nonlinearity in a controlled fashion. In conventional right-handed nonlinear transmission lines which is a circuit analog of the right-handed RH medium, nonlinearity results in waveform sharpening and shock wave formation. Dispersion, at the same time, results in waveform spreading. If a transmission line exhibits both nonlinearity and dispersion, the latter may compensate the nonlinearity, thus, resulting overall in the formation of temporal solitons. The parametric interactions such as threeand four-wave mixing of phase matched waves in RH NLTLs typically compete with shock wave formation. For instance, parametric generation and amplication in dispersionless RH transmission lines are entirely suppressed by shock wave formation.7 In contrast to conventional NLTLs, both the nonlinearity and dispersion present in LH NLTLs see Fig. 1 lead to waveform spreading,8 consequently, making shock wave and electronic soliton waveform has a form of soliton formation impossible. However, this inability to form shock waves enables a variety of parametric processes to occur instead.9,10 Furthermore, since the parametric intera

actions no longer compete with shock wave formation, it is possible to use stronger nonlinearities, consequently, achieving considerable gain in shorter transmission lines.11 Besides the nonlinear evolution of a waveform itself, another class of phenomena involving evolution of amplitude and phase of continuous waves is also possible. This type of nonlinear wave propagation phenomena arises in NLTLs having strong frequency dispersion with respect to the average amplitude for amplitude-modulated wave containing a carrier of relatively high frequency and slow optical-type nonlinearity. This dispersion may lead to amplitude instability as well as to formation of envelope solitons and periodic modulation of a carrier wave propagating in a stationary manner. The observation of amplitude instability and envelope soliton generation in conventional RH NLTLs has already been the subject of many publications.1214 Here, we report the experimental observation of the generation of the trains of envelope solitons in LH NLTLs arising from the self-modulational instability under certain conditions of the amplitude and frequency of the pump wave. The analysis of LH NLTLs is straightforward when the equations governing envelope evolution can be reduced to the one-dimensional cubic nonlinear Schrodinger equation NSE, which provides a canonical description for the enve-

Electronic mail: alexander.kozyrev@gmail.com.

FIG. 1. Color online a Fabricated seven-section LH NLTL and b equivalent circuit of one stage. 91, 254111-1 2007 American Institute of Physics

0003-6951/2007/9125/254111/3/$23.00

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A. B. Kozyrev and D. W. van der Weide

Appl. Phys. Lett. 91, 254111 2007

FIG. 3. Voltage waveform a and its spectrum b measured at the output of seven-section LH NLTL fed by a 1.3125 GHz, +21.6 dBm input signal.

FIG. 2. Measured solid lines and simulated dotted lines magnitude of S21 parameter for seven-section LH NLTLs for the reverse bias voltage VB = 3.823 V. Inset shows dispersion curve of the LH NLTL dependence of the frequency vs relative wave number .

lope dynamics of a quasimonochromatic plane wave the carrier propagating in a weakly nonlinear dispersive medium when dissipative processes including nonlinear damping due to higher harmonic generation and nonlinear wave mixing are negligible.15,16 However, in most of the practical situations the parametric decay instabilities and higher harmonic generation can be very signicant.9,11,17,18 The threshold for parametric generation in LN NLTLs is known to be very low.17 In order to realize the scenario described by the NSE, the LH NLTL should be operated below this threshold so that the nonlinearity should be very weak and the NLTL impractically long. By contrast, we performed an experimental study of nonlinear envelope evolution and envelope soliton generation in relatively short LH NLTLs and when nonlinear damping is very strong. We are also taking advantage of a fast nonlinearity introduced by Schottky diodes when nonlinear capacitance is a function of the instantaneous value of voltage along the line rather then its amplitude, a type of nonlinearity not described in the framework of the NSE and its modications developed for slow retardating nonlinearity. Experimentally, we fabricated a seven- and ten-section LH NLTLs having identical sections Fig. 1a. The circuit was realized with microstrips on Rogers RT/Druid 3010 board with r = 10.2 and thickness h = 1.27 mm. The series nonlinear capacitance arose from Skyworks Inc. silicon hyperabrupt varactors two back-to-back connected diodes per section with a dc bias supply between them. Shunt inductances were implemented using high-Q high self resonant frequency 10 nH chip inductors Murata LQW18A00. dc bias wires were connected using 3 k resistors between the diodes. The pads on the board surface, in conjunction with natural parasitic components, introduce unavoidable series inductance and shunt capacitance, thus, making the whole circuit a composite right/left-handed transmission line.3,19 The equivalent circuit is shown in Fig. 1b. Figure 2 shows the magnitude of the linear small signal wave transmission S21 of the seven-section LH NLTL for reverse bias voltage 3.823 V. Parameters of the circuit model in Fig. 1b were extracted from the measured S parameters using AGILENT ADS software. They are CL 3.823 V = 1.34 pF, LL = 11.43 nH, CR = 0.62 pF, and LR = 3.18 nH. The dashed line in Fig. 2 shows the magnitude of

S21 calculated for the circuit model shown in Fig. 1b with component values specied above, and it is in a good agreement with measured data. The circuit model of Fig. 1b has also been used to calculate the dispersion curve of the LH transmission line, as shown in the inset in Fig. 2. As is evident from S parameters and dispersion curve presented in Fig. 2, the transmission line has a left-handed passband phase velocity is antiparallel with the group velocity from 800 MHz to 1.9 GHz at 3.823 V bias. The fabricated LH NLTLs were fed by the signal generated by an Agilent E4438C ESG vector signal generator and amplied. The signal at the output of LH NLTL was analyzed in the time and frequency domains with Agilent E4448A PSA Series spectrum analyzer and LeCroy Wavemaster 8600A real-time oscilloscope. In order to do that a HP 87300B 10 dB directional coupler has been connected between output port of LH NLTL and microwave spectrum analyzer and the coupled signal has been applied to the input of the oscilloscope. Figure 3 shows a typical voltage waveform and its spectrum measured at the output of seven-section LH NLTL in the envelope soliton generation regime. This voltage waveform is a cw signal with carrier at fundamental pump frequency and with an envelope representing itself a train of bright solitons appearing as periodic pulses above a cw background. The scenario of the development of modulational instability and/or generation of envelope solitons is very sensitive to the parameters of the signal applied at the input of NLTL. Depending on the amplitude and frequency of the input signal, trains of envelope solitons of different shape and types can be generated. Figure 4 shows envelopes of the

FIG. 4. Measured trains of envelope solitons for different power Pinp and the frequency f inp of the input signal. a f inp = 1.3723 GHz and Pinp = 24.66 dBm. b f inp = 1.3125 GHz and Pinp = 21.60 dBm. c f inp = 1.3216 GHz and Pinp = 19.34 dBm. d f inp = 1.2974 GHz and Pinp = 24.64 dBm. e f inp = 1.102 GHz and Pinp = 23.62 dBm.

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Appl. Phys. Lett. 91, 254111 2007

measured waveforms at the output of seven-section LH NLTL. These envelope functions have been obtained by applying Hilbert transform to the original voltage waveforms. Traces a, b, and c in Fig. 4 show trains of bright envelope solitons of different shapes while traces d and e show periodic trains of so-called dark solitons dips in the cw background. The trains of envelope solitons that we observed are also known as cnoidal waves. The interval between individual solitons depends on the amplitude and frequency of the input signal but does not depend on the length of LH NLTL. Comparison of voltage waveforms at the output of 7-, 10-, and 17-section LH NLTL for the same input signal parameters shows that the distance between solitons and their shape are preserved during propagation along transmission line and that we deal with generation of stationary train of solitons. The envelope shape is not smooth since strong nonlinearity gives rise to numerous higher harmonics and subharmonics of carrier frequency. In the spectral domain, generation of envelope solitons manifests itself in appearance of spectral regions with numerous closely spaced spectral harmonics. The interval between adjacent spectral components is f = 1 / , where is the period of the train of solitons. The central frequency of these regions is generally different from the carrier frequency. For example, in Fig. 3b, this region of dense spectrum is from 800 MHz to 1.367 GHz. The central frequency of this interval 1.083 GHz is below the carrier frequency 1.3125 GHz. The central frequency of the dense spectral region whose appearance correlates with the appearance of a stationary train of solitons can be also higher then the carrier frequency such as in the case of solitons having two maxima see Fig. 4c. Spectra typically have two dense regions. The rst one corresponds to the fundamental frequency and the second one to its third harmonic. Thus, it is the third order nonlinear term that is primarily responsible for soliton train generation. At the same time, the initial perturbation giving rise to the soliton train generation is produced by nonlinear processes connected with second term of nonlinearity. Thus, the efcient higher harmonic generation produces initial longwavelength perturbations due to anomalous dispersion while subharmonic generation and parametric generation of the low-frequency waves discussed in our previous publications911 is responsible for short-wavelength perturbations. The aforementioned initial perturbations under certain conditions are developed into a modulation instability of soliton type. A small variation of the parameters of the input signal leads to switching between generation of bright and dark solitons compare traces a and b in contrast to the scenario described by the NSE. As is known, systems described by NSE can be characterized by two main parameters, the nonlinearity parameter N = / A2 and A are the carrier frequency and the amplitude and the dispersion parameter D = 2 / k2 k is the wave number. According to the Lighthill criterion,18 either dark or bright solitons are observed depending on the sign of these two parameters. Bright solitons exist when DN 0 and dark solitons exits when DN 0. The observed switching is enabled by the counterplay of the signicant nonlinear damping due to strong and fast

nonlinearity and strong spatial dispersion exhibited by the periodic LH NLTLs. Neither is taken into account by standard NSE yet both are known to lead to coexistence of bright and dark solitons in other physical systems.20,21 For example, somewhat similar processes have recently been observed in the system of an in-plane magnetized single crystal yttrium iron garnet YIG lm in the magnetostatic backward volume wave conguration. However, there is a fundamental issue that distinguishes our work from Ref. 21. In Ref. 21 the soliton trains have been generated through the nonlinear mode beating of two copropagating magnetostatic backward volume wave excitations in thin YIG lm. Thus, a premodulated signal was used to achieve soliton generation. In contrast to this work, we applied nonmodulated sine wave at the input. In conclusion, we generated the trains of envelope solitons with different shape and types in a very practical short LH NLTL system. These phenomena have been observed for strong and fast nonlinearity and would be unattainable in the conventional dual RH NLTL under our experimental conditions due to generation of shock waves. Our approach could be also scaled from its current microwave form into terahertz, infrared, and, ultimately, visible form.22 We thank Ilya V. Shadrivov for helpful discussions and Hongjoon Kim for the help with fabrication of LH NLTL circuits. This work has been supported by AFOSR through the MURI program under Grant No. F49620-03-1-0420.
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