Reversed Doppler Effect in Photonic Crystals

Nonrelativistic reversed Doppler shifts have never been observed in nature and have only been speculated to occur in pathological systems with simultaneously negative effective permittivity and permeability. This Letter presents a different, new physical phenomenon that leads to a nonrelativistic reversed Doppler shift in light. It arises when light is reflected from a moving shock wave propagating through a photonic crystal. In addition to reflection of a single frequency, multiple discrete reflected frequencies or a 10 GHz periodic modulation can also be observed when a single carrier frequency of wavelength 1 microm is incident.