Intrinsic and extrinsic 2D chirality in metamaterials: an easy route to asymmetric transmission

Plum, E., Fedotov, V.A. and Zheludev, N.I. (2010) Intrinsic and extrinsic 2D chirality in metamaterials: an easy route to asymmetric transmission. SPIE Metamaterials: Fundamentals and Applications III, San Diego, United States. 31 Jul - 04 Aug 2010.

Abstract

Intrinsic 2D chirality is a property of twisted planar objects like spirals and the letter "S", whose sense of twist is reversed for opposite directions of observation. In 2006 it was discovered that 2D chirality is associated with a fundamental electromagnetic effect, the directionally asymmetric transmission of circularly polarized waves.
Here it will be demonstrated that the intriguing phenomenon of asymmetric transmission does not require intrinsically 2D-chiral materials. Instead, extrinsic 2D chirality, which can arise from oblique incidence onto ANY structured interface, is sufficient. Being dependent on the mutual orientation of metamaterial and incident beam, the asymmetric transmission effect is inherently tunable in this case and it can even be switched off. It will be shown that the tunable transmission asymmetry is necessarily accompanied by tunable directional asymmetries in reflection and absorption, opening up an opportunity to develop novel directionally asymmetric and polarization sensitive devices. Furthermore, an overview will be given over the underlying physics and fundamental limits of the directionally asymmetric phenomena.

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Contributors

Author: E. Plum

Author: N.I. Zheludev

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