Stopping light by an air waveguide with anisotropic metamaterial cladding

We present a detailed study of oscillating modes in a slab waveguide with air core and anisotropic metamaterial cladding. It is shown that, under specific dielectric configurations, slow and even stopped electromagnetic wave can be supported by such an air waveguide. We propose a linearly tapped waveguide structure that could lead the propagating light to a complete standstill. Both the theoretical analysis and the proposed waveguide have been validated by full-wave simulation based on finite-difference time-domain method.