Designing broadband enhanced chirality is of strong interest to the emerging fields of chiral chemistry and sensing, or to control the spin orbital momentum of photons in recently introduced nanophotonic chiral quantum and classical optical applications. However, chiral light‐matter interactions have an extremely weak nature, are difficult to control and enhance, and cannot be made tunable or broadband. In addition, planar ultrathin nanophotonic structures to achieve strong, broadband, and tunable chirality at the technologically important visible to ultraviolet spectrum still remain elusive. Here, these important problems are tackled by experimentally demonstrating and theoretically verifying spectrally tunable, extremely large, and broadband chiroptical response by nanohelical metamaterials. The reported new designs of all‐dielectric and dielectric‐metallic (hybrid) plasmonic metamaterials permit the largest and broadest ever measured chiral Kuhn's dissymmetry factor achieved by a large‐scale nanophotonic structure. In addition, the strong circular dichroism of the presented bottom‐up fabricated optical metamaterials can be tuned by varying their dimensions and proportions between their dielectric and plasmonic helical subsections. The currently demonstrated ultrathin optical metamaterials are expected to provide a substantial boost to the developing field of chiroptics leading to significantly enhanced and broadband chiral light‐matter interactions at the nanoscale.

We demonstrate calibration and operation of a Mueller matrix imaging microscope using dual continuously rotating anisotropic mirrors for polarization state generation and analysis. The mirrors contain highly spatially coherent nanostructure slanted columnar titanium thin films deposited onto optically thick titanium layers on quartz substrates. The first mirror acts as polarization state image generator and the second mirror acts as polarization state image detector. The instrument is calibrated using samples consisting of laterally homogeneous properties such as straight-through-air, a clear aperture linear polarizer, and a clear aperture linear retarder waveplate. Mueller matrix images are determined for spatially varying anisotropic samples consisting of a commercially available (Thorlabs) birefringent resolution target and a spatially patterned titanium slanted columnar thin film deposited onto a glass substrate. Calibration and operation are demonstrated at a single wavelength (530 nm) only, while, in principle, the instrument can operate regardless of wavelength. We refer to this imaging ellipsometry configuration as rotating-anisotropic-mirror-sample-rotating-anisotropic-mirror ellipsometry (RAM-S-RAM-E).

We report on terahertz (THz) electron paramagnetic resonance generalized spectroscopic ellipsometry (THz-EPR-GSE). Measurements of field and frequency dependencies of magnetic response due to spin transitions associated with nitrogen defects in 4H-SiC are shown as an example. THz-EPR-GSE dispenses with the need of a cavity, permits independently scanning field and frequency parameters, and does not require field or frequency modulation. We investigate spin transitions of hexagonal ( h) and cubic ( k) coordinated nitrogen including coupling with its nuclear spin (I = 1), and we propose a model approach for the magnetic susceptibility to account for the spin transitions. From the THz-EPR-GSE measurements, we can fully determine polarization properties of the spin transitions, and we can obtain the k coordinated nitrogen g and hyperfine splitting parameters using magnetic field and frequency dependent Lorentzian oscillator line shape functions. Magnetic-field line broadening presently obscures access to h parameters. We show that measurements of THz-EPR-GSE at positive and negative fields differ fundamentally and hence provide additional information. We propose frequency-scanning THz-EPR-GSE as a versatile method to study properties of spins in solid state materials.

A complete set of all optical phonon modes predicted by symmetry for bixbyite structure indium oxide is reported here from a combination of far-infrared and infrared spectroscopic ellipsometry, as well as first principle calculations. Dielectric function spectra measured on high quality, marginally electrically conductive melt grown single bulk crystals are obtained on a wavelength-by-wavelength (a.k.a. point-by-point) basis and by numerical reduction of a subtle free charge carrier Drude model contribution. A four-parameter semi-quantum model is applied to determine all sixteen pairs of infrared-active transverse and longitudinal optical phonon modes, including the high-frequency dielectric constant, ε ∞ = 4.05 ± 0.05. The Lyddane-Sachs-Teller relation then gives access to the static dielectric constant, ε DC = 10.55 ± 0.07. All experimental results are in excellent agreement with our density functional theory calculations and with previously reported values, where existent. We also perform optical Hall effect measurements and determine for the unintentionally doped n-type sample a free electron density of n = (2.81 ± 0.01) × 10 17 cm −3 , mobility of µ = (112 ± 3) cm 2 /(Vs), and an effective mass parameter of (0.208 ± 0.006)m e . Density and mobility parameters compare very well with results of electrical Hall effect measurements. Our effective mass parameter, which is measured independently of any other experimental technique, represents the bottom curvature of the Γ point in In 2 O 3 in agreement with previous extrapolations. We use terahertz spectroscopic ellipsometry to measure the quasistatic response of In 2 O 3 , and our model validates the static dielectric constant obtained from the Lyddane-Sachs-Teller relation.

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