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  • Open Access

Reverse circular Bragg phenomenon

Martin W. McCall* and Stefanos Fr. Koufidis†

  • Blackett Laboratory, Department of Physics, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, Prince Consort Road, London SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom

  • *m.mccall@imperial.ac.uk
  • †steven.koufidis20@imperial.ac.uk
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Phys. Rev. Research 4, 043154 – Published 30 November, 2022

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.4.043154

Abstract

The problem of axial propagation of circularly polarized light in a circularly birefringent structurally chiral medium is exactly solved via full electromagnetic analysis. Underlying symmetries of the system's characteristic matrix reveal interesting insights, which are confirmed by coupled wave theory. For extreme values of chirality, a reverse circular Bragg resonance arises in the negative refraction regime where handedness reversal of counterpart modes occurs. A condition is identified under which circular birefringence precisely offsets structural chirality, rendering the medium simply linearly birefringent. Manufacturing such a medium is feasible via current metamedia and inorganic materials technology and has applications in optics, optoelectronics, and sensing.

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Phys. Rev. Research 4, 043154– Published 30 November, 2022
  • Received 30 September 2022
  • Revised 3 November 2022
  • Accepted 14 November 2022
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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