Non-Hermitian Optical Structures with Losses

In recent years non-hermitian optics has attracted a lot of attention. One of the goals of this subfield is to introduce and tailor losses and gain in optical structures in order to come up with designs that show novel transport features like asymmetric transport, switching, invisibility etc. We will discuss some of these set-ups and
illuminate on the dual role of loss as a source of absorption and enhanced reflection due to impedance mismatching. Applications along these lines will be discussed.