Pulse shaping in the presence of enormous second-order dispersion in Al:ZnO/ZnO epsilon-near-zero metamaterial

A numerical study of the ultra-short pulse propagation in the aluminum-doped zinc oxide multi-layered metamaterial at the epsilon-near-zero spectral point is presented. The Drude model for dielectric permittivity and comparison with recent experimental data predict that damping frequency γ_D has the highest impact on the material losses and results in enormous second-order dispersion. Numerical simulations using both, the finite-difference time domain algorithm and the split-step Fourier method, show that variations of group velocity across the pulse at the epsilon-near-zero point results in a unique "soliton-like" propagation regime without nonlinearity for the propagation lengths of up to 300 nm.