Optical Activity Enhanced by Strong Inter-molecular Coupling in Planar Chiral Metamaterials

The polarization of light can be rotated in materials with an absence of molecular or structural mirror symmetry. While this rotating ability is normally rather weak in naturally occurring chiral materials, artificial chiral metamaterials have demonstrated extraordinary rotational ability by enginee...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports 2014-09, Vol.4 (1), p.5864-5864, Article 5864
Main Authors: Kim, Teun-Teun, Oh, Sang Soon, Park, Hyun-Sung, Zhao, Rongkuo, Kim, Seong-Han, Choi, Wonjune, Min, Bumki, Hess, Ortwin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
639/301/1019
639/301/1019/1015
639/624/399
639/624/400
Design
Electric fields
Electromagnetic radiation
Handedness
Humanities and Social Sciences
multidisciplinary
Optics
Physics
Polarization
Science
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Summary:The polarization of light can be rotated in materials with an absence of molecular or structural mirror symmetry. While this rotating ability is normally rather weak in naturally occurring chiral materials, artificial chiral metamaterials have demonstrated extraordinary rotational ability by engineering intra-molecular couplings. However, while in general, chiral metamaterials can exhibit strong rotatory power at or around resonances, they convert linearly polarized waves into elliptically polarized ones. Here, we demonstrate that strong inter-molecular coupling through a small gap between adjacent chiral metamolecules can lead to a broadband enhanced rotating ability with pure rotation of linearly polarized electromagnetic waves. Strong inter-molecular coupling leads to nearly identical behaviour in magnitude, but engenders substantial difference in phase between transmitted left and right-handed waves.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/srep05864