Characteristics of guided waves in indefinite-medium waveguides

We have presented a discussion on the guided waves in the indefinite-medium waveguides. The characteristic equations describing TE and TM guided waves have been derived. Aiming mainly at the TE guided waves, we have analyzed the existence conditions for the guided and surface modes for four distinct cases, respectively. A number of exotic properties have been revealed in such waveguides, such as the coexistence of forward and backward modes, the absence of fundamental modes, the existence of surface modes and the relaxed requirements for waveguide core constitutive parameters. Numerical results have confirmed our analyses.