Wave Manipulations by Coherent Perfect Channeling

We report experimental and theoretical investigations of coherent perfect channeling (CPC), a process that two incoming coherent waves in waveguides are completely channeled into one or two other waveguides with little energy dissipation via strong coherent interaction between the two waves mediated by a deep subwavelength dimension scatterer at the common junction of the waveguides. Two such scatterers for acoustic waves are discovered, one confirmed by experiments and the other predicted by theory, and their scattering matrices are formulated. Scatterers with other CPC scattering matrices are explored, and preliminary investigations of their properties are conducted. The scattering matrix formulism makes it possible to extend the applicable domain of CPC to other scalar waves, such as electromagnetic waves and quantum wavefunctions.