Planar two-groove optical differentiator in a slab waveguide

We propose a simple planar optical differentiator consisting of two grooves on the surface of a slab waveguide. The studied differentiator operates in reflection and enables temporal and spatial differentiation of optical pulses and beams propagating in the waveguide. The differentiation is associated with the excitation of an eigenmode localized at the ridge located between the grooves. The presented numerical simulation results demonstrate high-quality spatial, temporal and the so-called spatiotemporal differentiation. The proposed differentiator may find application in ultrafast analog computing and signal processing systems. (C) 2017 Optical Society of America