Nanowire waveguide made from extremely anisotropic metamaterials

Exact solutions are obtained for all the modes of wave propagation along an anisotropic cylindrical waveguide. Closed-form expressions for the energy flow on the waveguide are also derived. For extremely anisotropic waveguide where the transverse permittivity is negative (epsilon perpendicular to < 0) while the longitudinal permittivity is positive (epsilon(parallel to) > 0), only transverse magnetic (TM) and hybrid modes will propagate on the waveguide. At any given frequency the waveguide supports an infinite number of eigenmodes. Among the TM modes, at most only one mode is forward wave. The rest of them are backward waves which can have very large effective index. At a critical radius, the waveguide supports degenerate forward-and backward-wave modes with zero group velocity. These waveguides can be used as phase shifters and filters, and as optical buffers to slow down and trap light.