Solitary waves in chains of silicon nanoparticles

We study the propagation of short pulses (~ 100 fs) in waveguides composed of silicon nanoparticles, in both linear and nonlinear regimes. We show that in the linear regime the pulses significantly broaden on a length of tens of micrometers, due to the strong waveguide dispersion of the chain. In the nonlinear regime, the pulse broadening can be compensated by nonlinear effects in the chains of nonspherical nanoparticles. It is possible due to the interplay of the electric and magnetic resonances in the nanodisks, which changes the sign of the group velocity dispersion in a range of frequencies, making possible the formation of solitary waves.