Nonreciprocal diffraction through dielectric gratings with two-dimensional chirality

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Description/Abstract

It is generally assumed that the propagation of light through a dielectric medium is always reciprocal under reversal of the propagation direction. We show that in an all-dielectric diffractive system nonreciprocal polarization changes are possible for individual diffracted beams when the diffractive medium possesses two-dimensional chirality. This nonreciprocity is characterized by different eigenstates for the system for the forward and reverse directions respectively, yet it is also entirely consistent with the predictions of the Lorentz reciprocity lemma.