Lateral shifts of a Gaussian beam reflected from lossy layered structure

We study the electromagnetic surface waves, the so-called Tamm states, and Gaussian beam reflection from a semi-infinite one-dimensional photonic crystal made of right-handed materials. We show that such layered structures can demonstrate a giant lateral Goos–Hänchen shift of the scattered beam accompanied by a splitting of the reflected and transmitted beams due to the resonant excitation of surface waves at the interfaces between the left-handed metamaterial and photonic crystal. The beam shift can be either positive or negative, depending on the type of the surface waves (forward or backward) excited by the incoming beam. Also, to make our predictions more realistic, we study the effect of losses on the lateral Goos–Hänchen shift.