Spinning radiation from a topological insulator

Khan, Emroz; Narimanov, Evgenii E.

doi:10.1103/physrevb.100.081408

Cited by 12 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Because the origin of the circular photoconductance is the TSS with gapless Dirac dispersion, the chirality detection can also operate under lower energy excitation and even in mid-infrared (MIR) which can be used to directly measure the chiral thermal radiation from special texture or materials. [1,56] An example of MIR chirality detection is presented in Note S3, Supporting Information.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optical Chirality Detection Using a Topological Insulator Transistor

Huang

2021

Advanced Optical Materials

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of CPL can serve as a molecule-screening tool. In fact, it is widely used in drug screening to discern effective medical target products from ineffective or even toxic enantiomers. [2] The emerging applications in quantum communication and computing, [3,4] circular dichroism spectroscopy, and polarimetric imaging [5] also demand optical chirality detection. However, conventional solutions for optical chirality detection require multiple optical elements including phase retarders, quarter waveplate (QWP), polarizing beam splitters, and rotating optomechanical components. This is due to the lack of intrinsic chiral response in common semiconductors such as silicon and III-V semiconductors from which photodetectors are made, thus, miniaturization of optical chirality detection devices is challenging. One direction of seeking chirality detecting devices is using intrinsically chiral materials including chiral dyes and liquid crystals. The first organic-semiconductor transistor for chirality detection utilized chiral helicene [6] and hybrid perovskite devices were explored by combining the chiral-sensitive absorbing organic material and inorganic compound to enhance the optoelectronic performance. [7,8] The invention of metamaterials or metasurfaces, that is, fabrication of sub-diffraction-limited nanostructures, enabled chiral optical properties beyond those offered by naturally existing materials. Metamaterials with helical nanostructures, for example, spirals that lack mirror symmetry, exhibit chirality-dependent absorption/transmission, and have been shown to achieve direct chirality detection. [9][10][11][12][13][14] Alternatively, metamaterials and metasurfaces also demonstrated the capability of manipulating polarization states, [15] and could function as ultracompact optical elements including linear/circular polarizers, [11] waveplates/ phase-retarders, [16] and polarizing beam splitters. [17] Fabricating these optical elements on top of conventional photodetectors can resolve the optical chirality [18,19] or extract the full Stokes parameters. [20] Topological insulators (TIs) are a new phase of quantum materials with topological surface states (TSS) on the surface. [21,22] Tetradymites are known as one of the best roomtemperature thermoelectric materials for decades [23][24][25][26] and also have been applied in optoelectronics, [27][28][29] and later proven to be 3D TIs. [30][31][32][33] The spin texture of the TSS electrons is locked to their momentum, so that the spin polarization can be induced

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optical Chirality Detection Using a Topological Insulator Transistor

Huang

2021

Advanced Optical Materials

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“…[ 171,172 ] Consider a thermal emitter proposed in ref. [172] shown in Figure a that consists of a semi‐infinite TI substrate with a thin magnetic film on top that induces a time‐reversal symmetry breaking and leads to a quantum Hall states with a topological magnetoelectric effect. If one denotes the polarization of thermal photon in the | p 〉 − | s 〉 basis as

\cos \frac{θ}{2} | p 〉 - e^{i ϕ} \sin \frac{θ}{2} | s 〉

, then the polarization of the eigenstates of emitted photons can be represented on a Poincaré sphere as shown in Figure 8b.…”

Section: Thermal Devicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, planner thermal emitters made of TI could radiate thermal photons that carry a net spin angular momentum. [171,172] Consider a thermal emitter proposed in ref. [172] shown in Figure 8a that consists of a semi-infinite TI substrate with a thin magnetic film on top that induces a time-reversal symmetry breaking and leads to a quantum Hall states with a topological magnetoelectric effect.…”

Section: Thermal Devicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the case where the loss of the TI is infinitesimal, due to the magnetically induced magnetoelectric effect, the eigenstates shift along the equator The Y coordinate directly gives the spin angular momentum of the photon in unit of ℏ. Reproduced with permission. [172] Copyright 2019, Wiley-VCH. c) Schematic of a band structure of a magnetic Weyl semimetal with two Weyl nodes separated by b b 2 in momentum space.…”

Section: Thermal Devicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Topological Materials for Functional Optoelectronic Devices

Chorsi

Cheng

Zhao

et al. 2022

Adv Funct Materials

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The recent realization of topology as a mathematical concept in condensed matter systems has shattered Landau's widely accepted classification of phases by spontaneous symmetry breaking as he famously said, "a particular symmetry property exists or does not exist." Topological materials (TMs) such as topological insulators and topological semimetals, are characterized by properties that depend on the topology of the band structure. Such dependence has drastic implications on the optical, electrical, and thermal properties of the material. Fundamental physics of TMs is currently under active research in condensed matter, materials science, and high energy physics. In this review, recent advances in exploiting the unique properties of TMs to realize functional optoelectronic devices are surveyed. Current and future applications that are, or may be, enabled by their unique properties are discussed. Although many theoretical ideas have been proposed over the past decade or so on using TMs in optoelectronic applications, the focus will be on experimentally realized devices.

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“…Although linearly polarized thermal radiation has been demonstrated using patterned or microstructured geometries [19,20], realizing and detecting circular polarization of thermal emission is more difficult and has been demonstrated in very few experiments using either a chiral absorber metasurface [21] or a polarization conversion metasurface [10]. Apart from these experiments and many theoretical proposals relying on nanophotonic design of reciprocal chiral absorbers [22][23][24], new approaches based on nonequilibrium coupled antennas [25] and nonreciprocal media [26][27][28] have been recently explored for CP thermal emission. However, in all of these works so far, either the purity of circular polarization is low or high-purity circular polarization is achieved over configuration-dependent narrow spectral and angular bandwidths.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Broadband circularly polarized thermal radiation from magnetic Weyl semimetals

Wang

Khandekar

Gao

et al. 2021

Preprint

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We numerically demonstrate that a planar slab made of magnetic Weyl semimetal (a class of topological materials) can emit high-purity circularly polarized (CP) thermal radiation over a broad mid-and long-wave infrared wavelength range for a significant portion of its emission solid angle. This effect fundamentally arises from the strong infrared gyrotropy or nonreciprocity of these materials which primarily depends on the momentum separation between Weyl nodes in the band structure. We clarify the dependence of this effect on the underlying physical parameters and highlight that the spectral bandwidth of CP thermal emission increases with increasing momentum separation between the Weyl nodes. We also demonstrate using recently developed thermal discrete dipole approximation (TDDA) computational method that finite-size bodies of magnetic Weyl semimetals can emit spectrally broadband CP thermal light, albeit over smaller portion of the emission solid angle compared to the planar slabs. Our work identifies unique fundamental and technological prospects of magnetic Weyl semimetals for engineering thermal radiation and designing efficient CP light sources.

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Spinning radiation from a topological insulator

Abstract: We show that thermal radiation from a topological insulator carries a nonzero average spin angular momentum.

Cited by 12 publications

References 25 publications

Optical Chirality Detection Using a Topological Insulator Transistor

Optical Chirality Detection Using a Topological Insulator Transistor

Topological Materials for Functional Optoelectronic Devices

Broadband circularly polarized thermal radiation from magnetic Weyl semimetals

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