Broken enantiomeric symmetry for electromagnetic waves interacting with planar chiral nanostructures

Reichelt, Matthias; Koch, S. W.; Krasavin, Alexey V.; Moloney, J. V.; Schwanecke, A.S.; Stroucken, T.; Wright, E. M.; Zheludev, Nikolay I.

doi:10.1007/s00340-006-2211-4

Cited by 19 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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confidence: 70%

“…Thus, the optical response of these structures is different for righthanded circularly polarized (rcp) and left-handed circularly polarized (lcp) incident light, respectively. Recent work 3,4 has shown that the polarization behavior neither violates reciprocity nor time-reversal symmetry, in contrast to earlier claims.2 This means that the polarization behavior is roughly similar to optical activity (though clearly not isotropic) but is distinct from the Faraday effect. Intuitively, this behavior is directly connected to the planar nature of these structures: while a three-dimensional spiral or helix keeps its handedness when looked at from the other side, a planar chiral structure obviously changes its handedness.…”

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confidence: 79%

“…Planar chiral metallic structures have recently been introduced. [1][2][3][4] These structures are composed of periodically arranged metallic building blocks that are chiral, i.e., that cannot be brought into congruence with their mirror image (the so-called enantiomer) unless lifted off the substrate. Thus, the optical response of these structures is different for righthanded circularly polarized (rcp) and left-handed circularly polarized (lcp) incident light, respectively.…”

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Circular dichroism of planar chiral magnetic metamaterials

et al. 2007

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We propose, fabricate, and study a double-layer chiral planar metamaterial that exhibits pronounced circular dichroism at near-infrared wavelengths. The antisymmetric oscillation modes of the two coupled layers allow local magnetic-dipole moments and enhanced polarization effects compared with similar single-layer systems where only electric-dipole moments occur. Experiment and rigorous theoretical calculations are in good agreement. © 2007 Optical Society of America OCIS codes: 160.4760, 260.5430. Planar chiral metallic structures have recently been introduced. [1][2][3][4] These structures are composed of periodically arranged metallic building blocks that are chiral, i.e., that cannot be brought into congruence with their mirror image (the so-called enantiomer) unless lifted off the substrate. Thus, the optical response of these structures is different for righthanded circularly polarized (rcp) and left-handed circularly polarized (lcp) incident light, respectively. Recent work 3,4 has shown that the polarization behavior neither violates reciprocity nor time-reversal symmetry, in contrast to earlier claims.2 This means that the polarization behavior is roughly similar to optical activity (though clearly not isotropic) but is distinct from the Faraday effect. Intuitively, this behavior is directly connected to the planar nature of these structures: while a three-dimensional spiral or helix keeps its handedness when looked at from the other side, a planar chiral structure obviously changes its handedness.The optics of these planar chiral structures could be understood in terms of plasmon modes leading to local electric-dipole moments oscillating in a particular manner. Here, we discuss a novel structure where two metal layers are separated by a dielectric spacer [ Fig. 1(a)]. As a result, strong magnetic-dipole moments (or, equivalently, electric quadrupoles) can occur as well. We show that the resulting polarization effects are yet stronger than for single-layer structures. Our spectroscopic experiments are in good agreement with rigorous theoretical calculations.In our samples, the chiral building blocks or "photonic atoms" are arranged in a square lattice with lattice constant a = 340 nm. We emphasize that the operation wavelength is large with respect to the lattice constant such that our structures can be viewed as effective materials in the same spirit as, e.g., magnetic 5,6 or negative-index photonic metamaterials.7-9 Precisely, we have / a Ͼ 2 ( / a =2 is the fundamental Bragg condition), whereas previous work had / a Ϸ 0.16 (Refs. 1 and 2) and / a Ϸ 1 (Ref. We have also fabricated gammadion structures with angles other than 90°between the long and the short arms (e.g., 45°). These structures show smaller polarization effects and are not discussed here. Indeed, from symmetry it is obvious that structures with 0°and 180°a ngles would not exhibit any circular dichroism (CD) at all.For the optical characterization we perform broadband linear-optical transmittance spectroscopy with circularly polarized...

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Circular dichroism of planar chiral magnetic metamaterials

et al. 2007

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“…Other work on planar chiral periodic metallic structures (however, not all metamaterials in the sense used here, i.e., no effective materials) is discussed in Refs. [511][512][513][514][515][516]. Broadly speaking, the aspect of chirality in photonic metamaterials has not fully been explored yet.…”

Section: Negative-index Metamaterialsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Periodic nanostructures for photonics

et al. 2007

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Periodic nanostructures in photonics facilitate a far-reaching control of light propagation and light-matter interaction. This article reviews the current status of this subject, including both recent progress and well-established results. The primary focus is on the basic physical principles and potential applications associated with the existence of Bragg scattering, photonic band structures, and engineered effective-medium properties in periodic dielectric and metallo-dielectric systems. In addition, we discuss advantages and limitations of various theoretical and numerical approaches as well as of those fabrication techniques that have specifically been developed for this field.

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“…Our theoretical results clearly show that the transmission of such a structure depends on the state of the circular polarization (left or right). The presented metamaterial is designed in the visible region, where CD could be understood in terms of the plasmon modes leading to local oscillating electric dipole moments [37][38][39][40][41]. Furthermore, the simple geometry of the elliptical hole element will reduce the difficulty of fabrication compared to the commonly used chiral metamaterial consisting of helix or gammadion elements [13,41] and nonchiral metamaterial consisting of arc or sphere elements [14,33].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%