Spectral singularities with directional sensitivity

Abstract

We propose a class of spectral singularities that are sensitive to the direction of excitation and are arising in nonlinear systems with broken parity symmetry. These spectral singularities are sensitive to the direction of the incident beam and result in diverging transmission and reflection for the left (right) incident while the transmission and reflection of the right (left) side of the system remain finite. For pedagogical reason first, we review the scattering formalism in nonlinear systems using an abstract delta-function model. Then using a parity symmetry broken nonlinear system consists of two delta functions, one linear and the other nonlinear, we show the existence of our proposed spectral singularities. Then, we use an experimentally feasible realistic model based on coupled disk resonators and we identify the spectral singularity with directional sensitivity (SSDS). Our proposed SSDS might have applications in designing nonlinear sensors. Furthermore, it can provide a solution for the hole burning problem in pumped laser cavities.