Soliton generation in active nonlinear metamaterials

Abstract

We demonstrate experimentally a mechanism of the soliton generation in nonlinear active metamaterials. Our meta-structure consists of a ring resonator formed by a microwave amplifier loaded with a left-handed transmission line. We demonstrate a variety of nonlinear effects not described by weakly nonlinear models, and study experimentally the system's spatiotemporal dynamics, including the generation of envelope solitons being realized only for the backward-wave regime.