Unidirectional light propagation through two-layer nanostructures based on optical near-field interactions

Abstract

International audienc

Unidirectional light transmiission by two-layer nanostructures interacting via optical near-fields

“…Based on the previous work 1) , unidirectionality is expected in the near-infrared regime when the first-layer nanostructure comprises 80-nm-wide gratings and the second layer consists of pairs of Lshaped structures with a side length of 200 nm, as schematically shown in Fig. 1(b).…”

“…Unidirectional light transmission is important for various applications such as optical isolators and oneway mirrors. Asymmetric transmission of linearly or circularly polarized light by optical near-field processes on the nanometer scale through planar nanostructures has been intensively studied [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] as well as nanostructured waveguide-based architectures. [11][12][13] In Ref.…”

“…[11][12][13] In Ref. 1, we theoretically demonstrated that optical near-fields between two-layer planar nanostructures transfer light momentum in a different manner between forward and backward directions based on the angular spectrum representation of optical near-fields (Fig. 1(a)).…”

“…1(a)). 1,14) Utilization of large momenta available in the optical near-field is one of the most important and unique aspects of nano-optics. 15) The polarization conversion efficiency from x(y)polarized input light to y(x)-polarized output light in the forward direction (denoted as ( )…”

Localized fields, global impact: Industrial applications of resonant plasmonic materials

“…96 Recently, one-way transmission was L demonstrated in nonlinear passive microrings 97 and in more exotic parity-time-symmetric microtoroids 98 and optical waveguides. 99 , 100 Plasmonic components can enable the same effects on smaller scales, by using highly localized magnetic circulating currents, 68 directional polarization conversion from twolayer metamaterials, 101 and plasmonic parity-time-symmetric components. 102 -104 Plasmonics has also had an impact on an emerging fi eld of information processing: quantum computing.…”