Optical analogues of Bloch-Zener oscillations in binary waveguide arrays: wavenumber evolution perspective

Abstract

We study optical analogues of Bloch oscillations and Zener tunneling in binary waveguide arrays (BWAs) with the help of the wavenumber-based approach. We analytically find two very simple laws describing the evolution of the central wavenumbers of beams in BWAs. From these simple laws, we can easily obtain the propagation distances in the analytical form where the beams operate at the Dirac points, and therefore, the Zener tunneling takes place due to the interband transition. We can also easily calculate the distances where beams reach the turning points in their motion. These distances just depend on the strength of the linear potential and the initial wavenumber of input beams. We also show that the nonlinearity of the Kerr type has a detrimental influence on the Bloch-Zener oscillations.