Optical Properties of Chiral Three-Dimensional Photonic Crystals made from Semiconductors

Abstract

We perform a theoretical and numerical study of the optical properties of both direct and inverse three-dimensional (3D) chiral woodpile structures, and a corresponding chiral Bragg stack. We compute transmission spectra in the helical direction for finite crystals, and photonic band structures, where we ensure the effective index of all structures to be the same. We find that both 3D structures show dual-band circular dichroism, where light with a particular circular polarization state - either left- or right-handed - reveals a broad stop band with major attenuation, whereas the other polarization state is transmitted nearly unimpeded. We observe such gaps in different frequency ranges, with alternating handedness. The appearance of the circular-polarized gaps is successfully interpreted with a physical model wherein the circular polarization either co-rotates or counter-rotates with the chiral structure, thereby effectively leading to a spatially-dependent or a constant refractive index, and thus to the presence or absence of a gap. We find that the presence or absence of circularly polarized gaps is tuned by the transverse periods perpendicular to the chiral axis in both the 3D direct and inverse chiral woodpile crystal structures. The tunability of circular dichroism may find applications as on-chip sensors for circularly polarized light and in the on-chip detection of chiral molecules.

arXiv comment10 pages, 9 figures

References in corpus (21)

• Weyl points and line nodes in gapless gyroid photonic crystals
• Twisted split-ring-resonator photonic metamaterial with huge optical activity
• Lasing oscillation in a three-dimensional photonic crystal nanocavity with a complete bandgap
• Inhibited spontaneous emission of quantum dots observed in a 3D photonic band gap
• Helicity-preserving optical cavity modes for enhanced sensing of chiral molecules
• Larger-area single-mode photonic crystal surface-emitting lasers enabled by an accidental Dirac point
• Polarization gaps in spiral photonic crystals
• Local chirality of optical waves in ultrasmall resonators
• Tunable and robust long-range coherent interactions between quantum emitters mediated by Weyl bound states
• Circular dichroism in a three-dimensional semiconductor chiral photonic crystal
• Observation of backscattering-immune chiral electromagnetic modes without time reversal breaking
• Reflectivity calculated for a 3D silicon photonic band gap crystal with finite support
• Method to make a single-step etch mask for 3D monolithic nanostructures
• The local density of optical states in the 3D band gap of a finite photonic crystal
• Circularly polarized vacuum field in three-dimensional chiral photonic crystals probed by quantum dot emission
• Giant optical rotation in a three-dimensional semiconductor chiral photonic crystal
• Circularly polarized topological edge states derived from optical Weyl points in semiconductor-based chiral woodpile photonic crystals
• Section Chern number for a 3D photonic crystal and the bulk-edge correspondence
• Light-matter interactions near photonic Weyl points
• Reflectivity of Finite 3D GaAs Photonic Band Gap Crystals
• High-Q nanocavities in semiconductor-based three-dimensional photonic crystals

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Polarization resolved hyperspectral imaging of the beetle Protaetia speciosa jousselini