Xie Fei, Ren Mengxin, Wu Wei, Yu Dianqiang, Cai Wei, Xu Jingjun
The Key Laboratory of Weak-Light Nonlinear Photonics, Ministry of Education, School of Physics and TEDA Applied Physics Institute, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, People's Republic of China.
Collaborative Innovation Center of Extreme Optics, Shanxi University, Taiyuan, Shanxi 030006, People's Republic of China.
Phys Rev Lett. 2020 Dec 4;125(23):237401. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.237401.
Optical activity from chiral metamaterials is both fundamental in electrodynamics and useful for polarization control applications. It is normally expected that due to infinitesimally small thickness, two-dimensional (2D) planar metamaterials cannot introduce large optical rotations. Here, we present a new mechanism to achieve strong optical rotation up to 90° by evoking phase transition in the 2D metamaterials through tuning coupling strength between meta-atoms. We analytically elucidate such phenomenon by developing a model of phase-transition coupled-oscillator array. And we further corroborate our ideas with both numerical simulations and experiments. Our findings would pave a new way for applying the concept of phase transition in photonics for designing novel optical devices for strong polarization controls and other novel applications.
手性超材料的光学活性在电动力学中具有基础性意义，且对偏振控制应用很有用。通常认为，由于厚度极小，二维（2D）平面超材料无法产生大的光学旋转。在此，我们提出一种新机制，通过调节超原子之间的耦合强度，在二维超材料中引发相变，从而实现高达90°的强光学旋转。我们通过建立相变耦合振荡器阵列模型，对这种现象进行了分析阐释。并且我们通过数值模拟和实验进一步证实了我们的想法。我们的发现将为在光子学中应用相变概念来设计用于强偏振控制及其他新颖应用的新型光学器件开辟一条新途径。
