Bistable and negative lateral shifts of the reflected light beam from Kretschmann configuration with nonlinear left-handed metamaterials

We study the bistable and negative lateral shifts of the reflected light beam from Kretschmann configuration containing left-handed metamaterials with self-focusing and self-defocusing Kerr-type nonlinearity. It is shown that the lateral shifts can be large and negative when the thickness of the middle metal film is smaller than the critical value. Taking the nonlinear effect into account, there exists a hysteretic response between the beam shift and the intensity of the incident light beam. These results suggest that the bistable and negative beam shifts can be modulated by nonlinear coefficients and intensity of incident beam, which might be used in integrated photonics and optical switches.