Wave polarization contains valuable information for electromagnetic signal processing; hence, the ability to manipulate it can be extremely useful in photonic devices. In this work, we propose designs solely comprised of one of the emerging and interesting two-dimensional media; Black Phosphorus. Due to substantial in-plane anisotropy, the simplest possible structure: a single slab of Black Phosphorus, can be very efficient and for manipulating the polarization state of electromagnetic waves. We propose Black Phosphorus films that filter the fields along one direction, or achieve large magnetic-free Faraday rotation, or convert linear polarization to circular; these slabs can be employed as  components in numerous mid-IR integrated devices.

The electromagnetic response of a two-dimensional metal embedded in a periodic array of a dielectric host can give rise to a plasmonic Dirac point that emulates Epsilon-Near-Zero (ENZ) behavior. This theoretical result is extremely sensitive to structural features like periodicity of the dielectric medium and thickness imperfections. We propose that such a device can actually be realized by using graphene as the 2D metal and materials like the layered semiconducting transition-metal dichalcogenides or hexagonal boron nitride as the dielectric host. We propose a systematic approach, in terms of design characteristics, for constructing metamaterials with linear, elliptical and hyperbolic dispersion relations which produce ENZ behavior, normal or negative diffraction.

Surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) are coherent electromagnetic surface waves trapped on an insulator-conductor interface. The SPPs decay exponentially along the propagation due to conductor losses, restricting the SPPs propagation length to few microns. Gain materials can be used to counterbalance the aforementioned losses. We provide an exact expression for the gain, in terms of the optical properties of the interface, for which the losses are eliminated. In addition, we show that systems characterized by lossless SPP propagation are related to PT symmetric systems. Furthermore, we derive an analytical critical value of the gain describing a phase transition between lossless and prohibited SPPs propagation. The regime of the aforementioned propagation can be directed by the optical properties of the system under scrutiny. Finally, we perform COMSOL simulations verifying the theoretical findings.

We use a simple dynamical model and explore coherent dynamics of wavepackets in complex networks of optical fibers. We start from a symmetric lattice and through the application of a Monte–Carlo criterion we introduce structural disorder and deform the lattice into a small-world network regime. We investigate in the latter both structural (correlation length) as well as dynamical (diffusion exponent) properties and find that both exhibit a rapid crossover from the ordered to the fully random regime. For a critical value of the structural disorder parameter ρ≈0.25 transport changes from ballistic to sub-diffusive due to the creation strongly connected local clusters and channels of preferential transport in the small world regime.

We investigate certain configurations of Luneburg lenses that form light propagating and guiding networks. We study single Luneburg lens dynamics and apply the single lens ray tracing solution to various arrangements of multiple lenses. The wave propagating features of the Luneburg lens networks are also verified through direct numerical solutions of Maxwell’s equations. We find that Luneburg lenses may form efficient waveguides for light propagation and guiding. The additional presence of nonlinearity improves the focusing characteristics of the networks.