Non-generic bound states in the continuum in waveguides with lateral leakage channels

Abstract

For optical waveguides with a layered background which itself is a slab waveguide, a guided mode is a bound state in the continuum (BIC), if it coexists with slab modes propagating outwards in the lateral direction; i.e., there are lateral leakage channels. It is known that generic BICs in optical waveguides with lateral leakage channels are robust in the sense that they still exist if the waveguide is perturbed arbitrarily. However, the theory is not applicable to non-generic BICs which can be defined precisely. Near a BIC, the waveguide supports resonant and leaky modes with a complex frequency and a complex propagation constant, respectively. In this paper, we develop a perturbation theory to show that the resonant and leaky modes near a non-generic BIC have an ultra-high $Q$ factor and ultra-low leakage loss, respectively. We also show that a merging-BIC obtained by tuning structural parameters is always a non-generic BIC. Existing studies on merging-BICs are concerned with specific examples and specific parameters. We analyze an arbitrary structural perturbation (to a waveguide supporting a non-generic BIC) given by $δF({\bf r})$, where $F({\bf r})$ is the perturbation profile and $δ$ is the amplitude, and show that the perturbed waveguide has two BICs for $δ>0$ (or $δ<0$) and no BIC for $δ<0$ (or $δ>0$). This implies that a non-generic BIC is a merging-BIC (for any perturbation profile $F$) when $δ$ is regarded as a parameter. Our study indicates that non-generic BICs have interesting special properties that are useful in applications.