Large positive and negative lateral shift in prism-waveguide system with left-handed material of weak absorption

Abstract We study the mechanism of large positive and negative lateral shift in a prism-waveguide coupling system where the guiding layer is composed of left-handed material with weak absorption. As the giant lateral shift is always dramatically decreased by the loss of guiding layer, we introduce lossy cladding layer and substrate to realize large lateral shift in the above system, theoretical expression of lateral shift is derived and simulation results illustrate the appearance of large lateral shift.