Interplay between anisotropy and spatial dispersion in metamaterial waveguides

Abstract

We analyze spectrum of waveguide modes of an arbitrary uniaxial anisotropic metamaterial slab with non-local electromagnetic response whose permittivity tensor could be described within Drude approximation. Spatial dispersion was introduced within the hydrodynamical model. Both anisotropy and spatial dispersion were considered as perturbations. This helps to distinguish their effect on the spectrum of the slab and to analyze lifting of the degeneracy of eigenmodes at plasma frequency in detail. Spatial dispersion is shown to result in break of the singularity in the den- sity of optical states in the hyperbolic regime and in suppression of negative dispersion induced by anisotropy. Mutual effect of spatial dispersion and anisotropy can bring light to a complete stop at certain frequencies.