Nonlinear dynamics in low permittivity media: the impact of losses.

Slabs of materials with near-zero permittivity display enhanced nonlinear processes. We show that field enhancement due to the continuity of the longitudinal component of the displacement field drastically enhances harmonic generation. We investigate the impact of losses with and without bulk nonlinearities and demonstrate that in the latter scenario surface, magnetic and quadrupolar nonlinear sources cannot always be ignored.