Advanced photonic nanostructures have enabled the maximization of synthetic chiroptic activities. The unique structuring of these building blocks has empowered chiral selective interactions with electromagnetic waves in plasmonic structures and dielectric media. Given the repertoire of optimized chiral surfaces in the literature and the ubiquity of chirality in the organic realm, the natural direction to consider is the operation of these devices in larger optical systems much like their chiral organic counterparts. In this review, we recapitulate advances in active and nonlinear chiral metamaterials. Many of the results, such as the magneto-chiral anisotropy and third-harmonic Rayleigh scattering optical activity, are relatively unknown members of the more conventional family of tuning methodology and nonlinear processes. We believe they are poised to play an instrumental role in designing advanced chiroptic systems for applications in biochemistry, valleytronics, spintronics, and chiral quantum optics.
Metamaterials are artificially created media, which allow introducing additional degrees of freedom into electromagnetic design by controlling constitutive material parameters. Reconfigurable time-dependent metamaterials can further enlarge those capabilities by introducing a temporal variable as an additional controllable parameter. Here we demonstrate a first-of-its-kind reconfigurable volumetric metamaterial-based scatterer, wherein the electromagnetic properties are controlled dynamically with light. In particular, hybridized resonances in arrays of split ring resonators give rise to a col…
We theoretically consider infrared-driven hyperbolic metamaterials able to spatially filtering terahertz radiation. The metamaterial is a slab made of alternating semiconductor and dielectric layers whose homogenized uniaxial response, at terahertz frequencies, shows principal permittivities of different signs. The gap provided by metamaterial hyperbolic dispersion allows the slab to stop spatial frequencies within a bandwidth tunable by changing the infrared radiation intensity. We numerically prove the device functionality by resorting to full wave simulation coupled to the dynamics of charg…
On the mesoscopic scale, electromagnetic forces are of fundamental importance to an enormously diverse range of systems, from optical tweezers to the adhesion of gecko toes. Here we show that a strong light-driven force may be generated when a plasmonic metamaterial is illuminated in close proximity to a dielectric or metal surface. This near-field force can exceed radiation pressure and Casimir forces to provide an optically controlled adhesion mechanism mimicking the gecko toe: at illumination intensities of just a few tens of nW/um^2 it is sufficient to overcome the Earth's gravitational pu…
We experimentally demonstrate intensity and phase modulation of terahertz radiation using actively controlled large-area planar metamaterial (metafilm) hybridized with a 12 um thick layer of a liquid crystal. Active control was introduced through in-plane electrical switching of the liquid crystal, which enabled us to achieve a reversible single-pass absolute transmission change of 20 % and a phase change of 40 deg at only 20 V.
It is evidenced by numerical calculations that optically pumped graphene is suitable for compensating inherent loss in terahertz (THz) metamaterials. In a first step, the complex conductivity of graphene under optical pumping is calculated and the proper conditions for terahertz amplification in single layer graphene are determined. It is shown that amplification in graphene occurs for temperatures up to room temperature and for moderate pump intensities when pumped at a telecommunication wavelength $λ=1.5~\mathrm{μm}$. Furthermore, the amplification properties of graphene are evaluated and di…
Epsilon-Near-Zero materials exhibit a transition in the real part of the dielectric permittivity from positive to negative value as a function of wavelength. Here we study metal-dielectric layered metamaterials in the homogenised regime (each layer has strongly subwavelength thickness) with zero real part of the permittivity in the near-infrared region. By optically pumping the metamaterial we experimentally show that close to the Epsilon-Equal-to-Zero (EEZ) wavelength the permittivity exhibits a marked transition from metallic (negative permittivity) to dielectric (positive permittivity) as a…
Coherent radiation with frequencies ranging from 0.3 to 30 THz has recently become accessible by femtosecond laser technology. Terahertz (THz) waves have already found many applications in spectroscopy and imaging, and they can be manipulated using static optical elements such as lenses, polarizers, and filters. However, ultrafast modulation of THz radiation is required as well, for instance in short-range wireless communication or for preparing shaped THz transients for coherent control of numerous material excitations. Here, we demonstrate an all-optically created transient metamaterial that…
We theoretically investigate the terahertz dielectric response of a semiconductor slab hosting an infrared photoinduced grating. The periodic structure is due to the charge carries photo-excited by the interference of two tilted infrared plane waves so that the grating depth and period can be tuned by modifying the beam intensities and incidence angles, respectively. In the case where the grating period is much smaller than the terahertz wavelength, we numerically evaluate the ordinary and extraordinary component of the effective permittivity tensor by resorting to electromagnetic full-wave si…
We demonstrate experimentally and numerically that nonplanar chiral metamaterials give giant optical activity, circular dichroism, and negative refractive index. The transmission, reflection, and the retrieval results of the experiments agree pretty well with the simulations. This is an important step toward the design and fabrication of three-dimensional isotropic chiral metamaterials.
Because of the strong inherent resonances, the giant optical activity obtained via chiral metamaterials generally suffers from high dispersion, which has been a big stumbling block to broadband applications. In this paper, we propose a type of chiral metamaterial consisting of interconnected metal helix structures with four-fold symmetry, which exhibits nonresonant Drude-like response and can therefore avoid the highly dispersive optical activity resulting from resonances. It shows that the well-designed chiral metamaterial can achieve nondispersive and pure optical activity with high transmit…
The combination of gain and loss in optical systems that respect parity-time (PT)-symmetry has pointed recently to a variety of novel optical phenomena and possibilities. Many of them can be realized by combining the PT-symmetry concepts with metamaterials. Here we investigate the case of chiral metamaterials, showing that combination of chiral metamaterials with PT-symmetric gain-loss enables a very rich variety of phenomena and functionalities. Examining a simple one-dimensional chiral PT-symmetric system, we show that with normally incident waves the PT-symmetric and the chirality-related c…
Topological valley photonics has emerged as a new frontier in photonics with many promising applications. Previous valley boundary transport relies on kink states at internal boundaries between two topologically distinct domains. However, recent studies have revealed a novel class of topological chiral edge states (CESs) at external boundaries of valley materials, which have remained elusive in photonics. Here, we propose and experimentally demonstrate the topological CESs in valley photonic metamaterials (VPMMs) by accurately tuning on-site edge potentials. Moreover, the VPMMs work at deep-su…
Artificial magnetism, negative permeability and negative refractive index are demonstrated in 3D-chiral metamaterial that shows giant polarization rotation and circular dichroism.
Here we report the designing of chiral metamaterial with metallic helix array. The effective electric and magnetic dipoles, which originate from the induced surface electric current upon illumination of incident light, are collinear at the resonant frequency. Consequently, for the circularly polarized incident light, negative refractive index is realized. Our design provides a unique approach to tune the optical properties by assembling helices, and demonstrates a different approach in exploring three- dimensional chiral metamaterial.
We demonstrated a 2D helical chiral metamaterial that exhibits broadband strong optical activity resulting nonresonant Drude-like response. The strong chirality leads to broadband negative refractive index with high figure of merit (>90) and extremely low loss (<2% per layer). The optical activity are insensitive to the angles of incident electromagnetic waves, thereby enabling more flexibility in polarization manipulation applicaitons.
Negative index metamaterials (NIMs) give rise to unusual and intriguing properties and phenomena, which may lead to important applications such as superlens, subwavelength cavity and slow light devices. However, the negative refractive index in metamaterials normally requires a stringent condition of simultaneously negative permittivity and negative permeability. A new class of negative index metamaterials - chiral NIMs, have been recently proposed. In contrast to the conventional NIMs, chiral NIMs do not require the above condition, thus presenting a very robust route toward negative refracti…
We propose a resonant microwave absorber based on a chiral metamaterial. We show, with both numerical simulations and experimental measurements, that the absorber works well for a very wide range of incident angles for different polarizations. The proposed absorber has a compact size and the absorption is close to one for a wide range of incident angles and it is a good candidate for potential applications.
Homogenization of metamaterials is a crucial issue as it allows to describe their optical response in terms of effective wave parameters as e.g. propagation constants. In this paper we consider the possible homogenization of chiral metamaterials. We show that for meta-atoms of a certain size a critical density exists above which increasing coupling between neighboring meta-atoms prevails a reasonable homogenization. On the contrary, a dilution in excess will induce features reminiscent to photonic crystals likewise prevailing a homogenization. Based on Bloch mode dispersion we introduce an ana…
After the prediction that strong enough optical activity may result in negative refraction and negative reflection, more and more artificial chiral metamaterials were designed and fabricated at difference frequency ranges from microwaves to optical waves. Therefore, a simple and robust method to retrieve the effective constitutive parameters for chiral metamaterials is urgently needed. Here, we analyze the wave propagation in chiral metamaterials and follow the regular retrieval procedure for ordinary metamaterials and apply it in chiral metamaterial slabs. Then based on the transfer matrix te…
We propose a planar composite chiral metamaterial (CCMM) by symmetrically inserting a metallic mesh between two layers of conjugated gammadion resonators. As the elaborate CCMM operates in the frequency region of off-resonance, it therefore presents loss-less and dispersion-free features. It can achieve flat polarization rotation simultaneously accompanied with high transmission and extremely low ellipticity in a broad bandwidth. In the meanwhile, this intriguing CCMM shows more superiorities in polarization rotation power and operating bandwidth than the pure chiral metamaterial just composed…
We report on a numerical study of optical chirality. Intertwined gold helices illuminated with plane waves concentrate right and left circularly polarized electromagnetic field energy to sub-wavelength regions. These spots of enhanced chirality can be smoothly shifted in position and magnitude by varying illumination parameters, allowing for the control of light-matter interactions on a nanometer scale.
Chiral structure can be applied to construct metamaterial with negative refractive index (NRI). In an assembly of double-layered metallic U-shaped resonators with two resonant frequencies wH and wL, the effective induced electric and magnetic dipoles, which are contributed by the specific surface current distributions, are collinear at the same frequency. Consequently, for left circularly polarized light, NRI occurs at wH, whereas for right circularly polarized light it occurs at wL. Our design provides a new example to apply chiral structures to tune electromagnetic properties, and could be e…
We theoretically investigate the electromagnetic response of a novel class of multi-layered metamaterials obtained by alternating graphene sheets and dielectric layers, the whole structure not exhibiting a plane of reflection symmetry along the stacking direction. We show that the electromagnetic response of the structure is characterized by a magneto-electric coupling described by an effective chiral parameter. Exploiting the intrinsic tunability of the graphene-light coupling, we prove that one can tune both the dielectric and the chiral electromagnetic response by varying the graphene chemi…
We report here the designing of optically-nonactive metamaterial by assembling metallic helices with different chirality. With linearly polarized incident light, pure electric or magnetic resonance can be selectively realized, which leads to negative permittivity or negative permeability accordingly. Further, we show that pure electric or magnetic resonance can be interchanged at the same frequency band by merely changing the polarization of incident light for 90 degrees. This design demonstrates a unique approach to construct metamaterial.
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 be controlled and enhanced, 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 el…
Optically isotropic metamaterials (MMs) are required for the implementation of subwavelength imaging systems. At first glance one would expect that their design should be based on unit cells exhibiting a cubic symmetry being the highest crystal symmetry. It is anticipated that this is a sufficient condition since it is usually assumed that light does not resolve the spatial details of MM but experiences the properties of an effective medium, which is then optically isotropic. In this work we challenge this assumption by analyzing the isofrequency surfaces of the dispersion relation of the spli…
We derive an exact expression for the time-averaged electromagnetic energy inside a chiral dispersive sphere irradiated by a plane wave. The dispersion relations correspond to a chiral metamaterial consisting of uncoupled single-resonance helical resonators. Using a field decomposition scheme and a general expression for the electromagnetic energy density in bi-anisotropic media, we calculate the Lorenz-Mie solution for the internal fields in a medium that is simultaneously magnetic and chiral. We also obtain an explicit analytical relation between the internal electromagnetic field and the ab…
We report the existence of Weyl points in a class of non-central symmetric metamaterials, which has time reversal symmetry, but does not have inversion symmetry due to chiral coupling between electric and magnetic fields. This class of metamaterial exhibits either type-I or type-II Weyl points depending on its non-local response. We also provide a physical realization of such metamaterial consisting of an array of metal wires in the shape of elliptical helixes which exhibits type-II Weyl points.
We suggest that electromagnetic chirality, generally displayed by 3D or 2D complex chiral structures, can occur in 1D patterned composites whose components are achiral. This feature is highly unexpected in a 1D system which is geometrically achiral since its mirror image can always be superposed onto it by a 180 deg rotation. We analytically evaluate from first principles the bi-anisotropic response of multilayered metamaterials and we show that the chiral tensor is not vanishing if the system is geometrically one-dimensional chiral, i.e. its mirror image can not be superposed onto it by using…
The electronic Lorentz theory is employed to determine the electromagnetic response of planar split-ring metamaterials. Starting from the dynamics of individual free carriers, the effective permittivity tensor of the metamaterial is calculated. Whenever the split ring lacks in-plane mirror symmetry, the corresponding permittivity tensor has a crystallographic structure of an elliptically dichroic medium, and the metamaterial exhibits optical properties of planar chiral structures. Its transmission spectra are different for right-handed vs. left-handed circular polarization of the incident wave…
Chiroptical effects, characterized by different optical responses for left- (LCP) and right- handed circularly polarized light (RCP), are powerful and valuable tools in optics with wide applications in polarization resolved imaging and sensing. Previously observed strong chiroptical effects are limited to metamaterials with complex three-dimensional chiral structures at the sub-wavelength scale. Although asymmetrical transmission of LCP and RCP have been investigated in planar chiral metasurfaces, the observed weak chiroptical effects result from anisotropic Ohmic dissipation of the metal cons…
We demonstrate numerically and experimentally a conjugated gammadion chiral metamaterial that uniaxially exhibits huge optical activity and circular dichroism, and gives a negative refractive index. This chiral design provides smaller unit cell size and larger chirality compared with other published planar designs. Experiments are performed at GHz frequencies (around 6GHz) and in good agreement with the numerical simulations.
We investigate optically reconfigurable dielectric metamaterials at gigahertz frequencies. More precisely, we study the microwave response of a subwavelength grating optically imprinted into a semiconductor slab. In the homogenized regime, we analytically evaluate the ordinary and extraordinary component of the effective permittivity tensor by taking into account the photo-carrier dynamics described by the ambipolar diffusion equation. We analyze the impact of semiconductor parameters on the gigahertz metamaterial response which turns out to be highly reconfigurable by varying the photogenerat…
We study theoretically and experimentally a novel type of metamaterial with hybrid elements composed of twisted pairs of cross-shaped meta-atoms and their complements. We reveal that such two-layer metasurfaces demonstrate large, dispersionless optical activity at the transmission resonance accompanied by very low ellipticity. We develop a retrieval procedure to determine the effective material parameters for this structure, which has lower-order symmetry ($\mathrm {C}_4$) than other commonly studied chiral structures. We verify our new theoretical approach by reproducing numerical and experim…
Optical systems with gain and loss that respect Parity-Time (PT) symmetry can have real eigenvalues despite their non-Hermitian character. Chiral systems impose circularly polarized waves which do not preserve their handedness under the combined space- and time- reversal operations and, as a result, seem to be incompatible with systems possessing PT symmetry. Nevertheless, in this work we show that in certain configurations, PT symmetric permittivity, permeability and chirality is possible; in addition, real eigenvalues are maintained even if the chirality goes well beyond PT symmetry. By obta…
Optical activity (polarization rotation of light) is one of the most desired features of chiral media, as it is important for many polarization related applications. However, in the THz region, chiral media with strong optical activity are not available in nature. Here, we study theoretically, and experimentally a chiral metamaterial structure composed of pairs of vertical U-shape resonators of "twisted" arms, and we reveal that it demonstrates large pure optical activity (i.e. optical activity associated with negligible transmitted wave ellipticity) in the low THz regime. The experimental dat…
A uniaxial chiral metamaterial is constructed by double-layered four "U" split ring resonators mutually twisted by 90 degrees. It shows a giant optical activity and circular dichroism. The retrieval results reveal that a negative refractive index is realized for circularly polarized waves due to the large chirality. The experimental results are in good agreement with the numerical results.
We employ a homogenization technique based on the Lorentz electronic theory to show that planar chiral structures (PCSs) can be described by an effective dielectric tensor similar to that of biaxial elliptically dichroic crystals. Such a crystal is shown to behave like a PCS insofar as it exhibits its characteristic optical properties, namely, co-rotating elliptical polarization eigenstates and asymmetric, direction-dependent transmission for left/right-handed incident wave polarization.
We demonstrate gain in a three-dimensional metal/semiconductor metamaterial by the integration of optically active semiconductor quantum structures. The rolling-up of a metallic structure on top of strained semiconductor layers containing a quantum well allows us to achieve a three-dimensional superlattice consisting of alternating layers of lossy metallic and amplifying gain material. We show that the transmission through the superlattice can be enhanced by exciting the quantum well optically under both pulsed or continuous wave excitation. This points out that our structures can be used as a…
We report the first experiential observation and theoretical analysis of the new phenomenon of planar chiral circular conversion dichroism, which in some aspects resembles the Faraday effect in magnetized media, but does not require the presence of a magnetic field for its observation. It results from the interaction of an electromagnetic wave with a planar chiral structure patterned on the sub-wavelength scale, and manifests itself in asymmetric transmission of circularly polarized waves in the opposite directions through the structure and elliptically polarized eigenstates. The new effect is…
A bilayered chiral metamaterial (CMM) is proposed to realize a 90 degree polarization rotator, whose giant optical activity is due to the transverse magnetic dipole coupling among the metallic wire pairs of enantiomeric patterns. By transmission through this thin bilayered structure of less than λ/30 thick, a linearly polarized wave is converted to its cross polarization with a resonant polarization conversion efficiency (PCE) of over 90%. Meanwhile, the axial ratio of the transmitted wave is better than 40 dB. It is demonstrated that the chirality in the propagation direction makes this effic…
In the close vicinity of a chiral nanostructure, the circular dichroism of a biomolecule could be greatly enhanced, due to the interaction with the local superchiral fields. Modest enhancement of optical activity using a planar metamaterial, with some chiral properties, and achiral nanoparticles has been previously reported. A more substantial chirality enhancement can be achieved in the local filed of a chiral nanostructure with a three-dimensional arrangement. Using an embossed chiral nanostructure designed for chiroptical sensing, we measure the circular dichroism spectra of two biomolecule…
Applying Artmann's formula to the TE-polarized incident waves, we theoretically show that the Goos-Hänchen (GH) shifts near the angle of the pseudo-Brewster dip of the reflection from a slab of chiral metamaterial can be greatly enhanced. The GH shifts are observed for both parallel and perpendicular components of the reflected field. In addition, it is found that the GH shifts depend not only on the slab thickness and the incident angle, but also on the constitutive parameters of the chiral medium. In particular, when the incident angle is close to the critical angle of total reflection for L…
Focusing of electromagnetic plane wave from a large size paraboloidal reflector, composed of layers of chiral and/or chiral nihility metamaterials, has been studied us- ing Maslov's method. First, the transmission and reflection of electromagnetic plane wave from two parallel layers of chiral and/or chiral nihility metamaterials are cal- culated using transfer matrix method. The effects of change of angle of incidence, chirality parameters and impedances of layers are noted and discussed. Special cases by taking very large and small values of permittivity of second layer, while assuming value …
In this paper, a kind of helix-like chiral metamaterial, which can be realized with multiple conventional lithography or electron beam lithographic techniques, is proposed to achieve broadband bianisotropic optical response analogous to helical metamaterial. On the basis of twisted metamaterial, via tailoring the relative orientation within the lattice, the anisotropy of arc is converted into magneto-electric coupling of closely spaced arc pairs, which leads to a broad bianisotropic optical response. By connecting the adjacent upper and lower arcs, the coupling of metasurface pairs is transfor…
We review the basic physics behind light interaction with plasmonic nanoparticles. The theoretical foundations of light scattering on one metallic particle (a plasmonic monomer) and two interacting particles (a plasmonic dimer) are systematically investigated. Expressions for effective particle susceptibility (polarizability) are derived, and applications of these results to plasmonic nanoantennas are outlined. In the long-wavelength limit, the effective macroscopic parameters of an array of plasmonic dimers are calculated. These parameters are attributable to an effective medium corresponding…
Bi-isotropic and isotropic negative refractive index (NRI) 3D metamaterials made from periodic arrangements of chiral split ring resonators (SRRs) are proposed and demonstrated. An analytical theory for the characterization and design of these metamaterials is provided and validated by careful full-wave electromagnetic simulations. The reported results are expected to pave the way to the design of practical 3D bi-isotropic and isotropic NRI metamaterials made from a single kind of inclusions.
Starting from the Maxwell equations, we used the reductive perturbation method to derive a system of two coupled nonlinear Schrödinger (NLS) equations for the two Beltrami components of the electromagnetic field propagating along a fixed direction in an isotropic nonlinear chiral metamaterial. With single-resonance Lorentz models for the permittivity and permeability and a Condon model for the chirality parameter, in certain spectral regimes, one of the two Beltrami components exhibits a negative real refractive index when nonlinearity is ignored and the chirality parameter is sufficiently lar…
We demonstrate resonant Faraday polarization rotation in plasmonic arrays of bimetallic nano-ring resonators consisting of Au and Ni sections. This metamaterial design allows to optimize the trade-off between the enhancement of magneto-optical effects and plasmonic dissipation. Although Ni sections correspond to as little as ~6% of the total surface of the metamaterial, the resulting magneto-optically induced polarization rotation is equal to that of a continuous film. Such bimetallic metamaterials can be used in compact magnetic sensors, active plasmonic components and integrated photonic cir…
We report that the classical phenomena of optical activity and circular dichroism, which are traditionally associated with chirality (helicity) of organic molecules, proteins and inorganic structures, can be observed in non-chiral artificial media. Intriguingly, our metamaterial structure yields exceptionally strong resonant optical activity, which also leads to the appearance of a backward wave, a characteristic sign of negative-index media.
We investigate the influence of chirality on the PT-symmetric and PT-broken phase of PT-symmetric chiral systems. Starting from the point that transverse magnetic (TM) and transverse electric (TE) waves have different exceptional points, we show that with circularly polarized waves (which are linear combinations of TM and TE waves) mixed PT-symmetric phases can be realized and the extent of these phases can be highly controlled by either or both the chirality and the angle of incidence. Additionally, while the transmission of both TM and TE waves in non-chiral PT-symmetric systems is the same …
The possibility to produce laser-induced optical transparency of the metamaterial slab through the entire negative-index frequency domain is shown above the certain intensity threshold of the control laser field.
We experimentally demonstrate a three-dimensional chiral optical metamaterial that exhibits an asymmetric transmission for forwardly and backwardly propagating linearly polarized light. The observation of this novel effect requires a metamaterial composed of three-dimensional chiral metaatoms without any rotational symmetry. Our analysis is supported by a systematic investigation of the transmission matrices for arbitrarily complex, lossy media that allows deriving a simple criterion for asymmetric transmission in an arbitrary polarization base. Contrary to physical intuition, in general the p…
Optical activity is a fundamental phenomenon originating from the chiral nature of crystals and molecules. While intrinsic chiroptical responses of ordinary chiral materials to circularly polarized light are relatively weak, they can be enhanced by specially tailored nanostructures. Here, nanorod metamaterials, comprising a dense array of vertically aligned gold nanorods, is shown to provide significant enhancement of the circular dichroism response of an embedded material. A nanorod composite, acting as an artificial uniaxial crystal, is filled with chiral mercury sulfide nanocrystals embedde…
