Spectral singularities with directional sensitivity

Abstract

We propose a class of spectral singularities that are sensitive to the direction of excitation and arise 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 the pedagogical reason, first we review the scattering formalism in nonlinear systems using an abstract δ-function model. Then, using a parity symmetry broken nonlinear system consisting of two δ functions, one linear and the other nonlinear, we prove the existence of our proposed spectral singularities. Finally, we use an experimentally feasible realistic model based on coupled disk resonators to demonstrate the spectral singularity with directional sensitivity (SSDS). Our proposed SSDS might have applications in the design of nonlinear sensors and might provide a solution for the hole-burning problem in pumped laser ring resonators.