Surface solitons in left-handed metamaterials

A theory of self-induced transparency of surface TM-mode propagating along a interface separating conventional and left-handed metamaterials is developed. A transition layer sandwiched between connected media is described using a model of a two-dimensional gas of quantum dots. Explicit analytical expressions for a surface optical soliton in the presence of single and biexciton transitions, depending on the magnetic permeability of the left-handed medium, are obtained with realistic parameters which can be reached in current experiments. It is shown that the sign of the total energy flow the surface mode depends on the material parameters of the quantum dots and the connected media.