PT -symmetric laser absorber

In a recent work, Y. D. Chong et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 053901 (2010)] proposed the idea of a coherent perfect absorber (CPA) as the time-reversed counterpart of a laser, in which a purely incoming radiation pattern is completely absorbed by a lossy medium. The optical medium that realizes CPA is obtained by reversing the gain with absorption, and thus it generally differs from the lasing medium. Here it is shown that a laser with an optical medium that satisfies the parity-time $(\mathcal{PT})$ symmetry condition $\ensuremath{\epsilon}(\ensuremath{-}\mathbf{r})={\ensuremath{\epsilon}}^{*}(\mathbf{r})$ for the dielectric constant behaves simultaneously as a laser oscillator (i.e., it can emit outgoing…