  We demonstrate that a single sub-cycle optical pulse can be generated when a
pulse with a few optical cycles penetrates through resonant two-level dense
media with a subwavelength structure. The single-cycle gap soliton phenomenon
in the full Maxwell-Bloch equations without the frame of slowly varying
envelope and rotating wave approximations is observed. Our study shows that the
subwavelength structure can be used to suppress the frequency shift caused by
intrapulse four-wave mixing in continuous media and supports the formation of
single-cycle gap solitons even in the case when the structure period breaks the
Bragg condition. This suggests a way toward shortening high-intensity laser
fields to few- and even single-cycle pulse durations.
