Exceptional points in lossy media lead to deep polynomial wave penetration with spatially uniform power loss

Abstract

Waves entering a spatially uniform lossy medium typically undergo exponential intensity decay, arising from either the energy loss of the Beer–Lambert–Bouguer transmission law or the evanescent penetration during reflection. Recently, exceptional point singularities in non-Hermitian systems have been linked to unconventional wave propagation. Here, we theoretically propose and experimentally demonstrate exponential decay free wave propagation in a purely lossy medium. We observe up to 400-wave deep polynomial wave propagation accompanied by a uniformly distributed energy loss across a nanostructured photonic slab waveguide with exceptional points. We use coupled-mode theory and fully vectorial electromagnetic simulations to predict deep wave penetration manifesting spatially constant radiation losses through the entire structured waveguide region regardless of its length. The uncovered exponential decay free wave phenomenon is universal and holds true across all domains supporting physical waves, finding immediate applications for generating large, uniform and surface-normal free-space plane waves directly from dispersion-engineered photonic chip surfaces. Exceptional points in nanostructured lossy photonic waveguides lead to uniformly distributed losses and linear amplitude decay.