Guiding waves through an invisible tunnel

Transformation optics provides a promising way to guide waves in the open space. It is shown that a small waveguide coated with transformation medium will behave as a big virtual tunnel connecting two waveguide ports separated faraway. The waves are transmitted and guided smoothly in the open space through this 'invisible tunnel'. The transformation medium is obtained by squeezing the space between the two ports into a small region. Numerical simulations are performed to illustrate this idea. (C) 2009 Optical Society of America