Photonic Dirac waveguide in inhomogeneous spoof surface plasmonic metasurfaces

Area of Science:

• * Metamaterials and Plasmonics
• * Condensed Matter Physics
• * Electromagnetism

Background:

• * Metamaterials offer advanced control over electromagnetic wave transport via synthetic gauge fields.
• * Artificial magnetic fields are crucial for manipulating wave propagation, but typically require breaking time-reversal symmetry.

Purpose of the Study:

• * To propose and demonstrate an inhomogeneous spoof surface plasmonic metasurface for generating an in-plane pseudo-magnetic field.
• * To engineer a photonic Dirac waveguide utilizing chiral Landau levels.
• * To achieve high-capacity, unidirectional electromagnetic energy transport.

Main Methods:

• * Engineering gradient variations in an opened Dirac cone with a spatially varying mass term to create a pseudo-magnetic field.
• * Inducing chiral zeroth-order Landau levels via the strong pseudo-magnetic field.
• * Designing and experimentally validating a photonic Dirac waveguide based on bulk state propagation.

Main Results:

• * Successful generation of an in-plane pseudo-magnetic field in a metasurface.
• * Observation of chiral zeroth-order Landau levels.
• * Experimental demonstration of a photonic Dirac waveguide with unidirectional electromagnetic mode propagation.
• * High-capacity energy transport achieved in the waveguide.

Conclusions:

• * The proposed metasurface enables artificial in-plane magnetic fields in metamaterials without breaking time-reversal symmetry.
• * A novel photonic Dirac waveguide is demonstrated, facilitating unidirectional energy transport.
• * This work presents a new platform for integrated photonic devices and advanced wave manipulation.