Electromagnetic Nonreciprocity in a Magnetized Plasma Circulator

Abstract

Nonreciprocal transport of electromagnetic waves within magnetized plasma is a powerful building block towards understanding and exploiting the properties of more general topological systems. Much recent attention has been paid to the theoretical issues of wave interaction within such a medium, but there is a lack of experimental verification that such systems can be viable in a lab or industrial setting. This work provides an experimental proof-of-concept by demonstrating nonreciprocity in a unit component, a microwave plasma circulator. We design an E-plane Y junction plasma circulator operating in the range of 4 to 6 GHz using standardized waveguide specifications. From both simulations and experiments, we observe wide band isolation for the power transmission through the circulator. The performance and the frequency band of the circulator can be easily tuned by changing the plasma density and the magnetic field strength. By linking simulations and experimental results, we estimate the plasma density for the device.