Polarization-controlled chiral transport

Hang Zhu; Jian Wang; Andrea Alù; Lin Chen

doi:10.1038/s41377-025-01762-9

Go to Nature Website

Your Location：

Home >

Browse articles >

Polarization-controlled chiral transport

Original Articles

- Polarization-controlled chiral transport
- Light: Science & Applications Vol. 14, Issue 3, Pages: 822-830(2025)
- Affiliations：
  
  1.Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics and School of Optical and Electronic Information, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China
  2.Photonics Initiative, Advanced Science Research Center, City University of New York, New York, NY 10031, USA
  3.Physics Program, Graduate Center, City University of New York, New York, NY 10016, USA
  4.Shenzhen Huazhong University of Science and Technology Research Institute, Shenzhen 518063, China
  5.Key Laboratory of High Temperature Electromagnetic Materials and Structure of MOE, Wuhan University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430081, China
- Author bio：
  
  Lin Chen (chen.lin@mail.hust.edu.cn)
- Funds：
- DOI：10.1038/s41377-025-01762-9
  CLC：
- Received：04 September 2024，
  
  Revised：12 January 2025，
  
  Accepted：2025-01-17，
  
  Published Online：10 February 2025，
  
  Published：31 March 2025
- Accepted：
Scan QR Code
Zhu, H. et al. Polarization-controlled chiral transport. Light: Science & Applications, 14, 822-830 (2025).
DOI：

Zhu, H. et al. Polarization-controlled chiral transport. Light: Science & Applications, 14, 822-830 (2025). DOI： 10.1038/s41377-025-01762-9.

摘要

Abstract

Handedness-selective chiral transport is an intriguing phenomenon that not only holds significant importance for fundamental research but also carries application prospects in fields such as optical communications and sensing. Currently

on-chip chiral transport devices are static

unable to modulate the output modes based on the input modes. This limits both device functionality reconfiguration and information transmission capacity. Here

we propose to use the incident polarization diversity to control the Hamiltonian evolution path

achieving polarization-dependent chiral transport. By mapping the evolution path of TE and TM polarizations onto elaborately engineered double-coupled waveguides

we experimentally demonstrate that different polarizations yield controllable modal outputs. This work combines Multiple-Input

Multiple-Output

and polarization diversity concepts with chiral transport and challenges the prevailing notion that the modal outputs are fixed to specific modes in chiral transport

thereby opening pathways for the development of on-chip reconfigurable and high-capacity handedness-selective devices.

关键词

Keywords

references

Hu, G. W. et al. Coherent steering of nonlinear chiral valley photons with a synthetic Au–WS 2 metasurface. Nat. Photonics 13 , 467–472 (2019)..

Chen, Y. et al. Chirality-dependent unidirectional routing of WS 2 valley photons in a nanocircuit. Nat. Nanotechnol. 17 , 1178–1182 (2022)..

Zhang, X. G. et al. Polarization-controlled dual-programmable metasurfaces. Adv. Sci. 7 , 1903382 (2020)..

Ma, Q. et al. Editing arbitrarily linear polarizations using programmable metasurface. Phys. Rev. Appl. 13 , 021003 (2020)..

Ding, F., Tang, S. W. & Bozhevolnyi, S. I. Recent advances in polarization-encoded optical metasurfaces. Adv. Photonics Res. 2 , 2000173 (2021)..

Lin, J. et al. Polarization-controlled tunable directional coupling of surface Plasmon polaritons. Science 340 , 331–334 (2013)..

Chen, Y. et al. Topologically protected valley-dependent quantum photonic circuits. Phys. Rev. Lett. 126 , 230503 (2021)..

Duan, X. Y. et al. Valley-addressable monolayer lasing through spin-controlled Berry phase photonic cavities. Science 381 , 1429–1432 (2023)..

Klaiman, S., Günther, U. & Moiseyev, N. Visualization of branch points in PT -symmetric waveguides. Phys. Rev. Lett. 101 , 080402 (2008)..

Rüter, C. E. et al. Observation of parity–time symmetry in optics. Nat. Phys. 6 , 192–195 (2010)..

Chen, Z. G. & Segev, M. Highlighting photonics: looking into the next decade. eLight 1 , 2 (2021)..

Kononchuk, R. et al. Exceptional-point-based accelerometer s with enhanced signal-to-noise ratio. Nature 607 , 697–702 (2022)..

Suntharalingam, A. et al. Noise resilient exceptional-point voltmeters enabled by oscillation quenching phenomena. Nat. Commun. 14 , 5515 (2023)..

Li, A. D. et al. Exceptional points and non-Hermitian photonics at the nanoscale. Nat. Nanotechnol. 18 , 706–720 (2023)..

Peng, B. et al. Parity–time-symmetric whispering-gallery microcavities. Nat. Phys. 10 , 394–398 (2014)..

Hodaei, H. et al. Parity-time–symmetric microring lasers. Science 346 , 975–978 (2014)..

Brandstetter, M. et al. Reversing the pump dependence of a laser at an exceptional point. Nat. Commun. 5 , 4034 (2014)..

Lee, H. et al. Chiral exceptional point and coherent suppression of backscattering in silicon microring with low loss Mie scatterer. eLight 3 , 20 (2023)..

Guo, A. et al. Observation of PT -symmetry breaking in complex optical potentials. Phys. Rev. Lett. 103 , 093902 (2009)..

Graefe, E. M., Mailybaev, A. A. & Moiseyev, N. Breakdown of adiabatic transfer of light in waveguides in the presence of absorption. Phys. Rev. A 88 , 033842 (2013)..

Doppler, J. et al. Dynamically encircling an exceptional point for asymmetric mode switching. Nature 537 , 76–79 (2016)..

Hassan, A. U. et al. Dynamically encircling exceptional points: exact evolution and polarization state conversion. Phys. Rev. Lett. 118 , 093002 (2017)..

Yoon, J. W. et al. Time-asymmetric loop around an exceptional point over the full optical communications band. Nature 562 , 86–90 (2018)..

Zhang, X. L. et al. Dynamically encircling exceptional points: in situ control of encircling loops and the role of the starting point. Phys. Rev. X 8 , 021066 (2018)..

Zhang, X. L. et al. Distinct outcomes by dynamically encircling an exceptional point along homotopic loops. Phys. Rev. A 99 , 063831 (2019)..

Zhang, X. L., Jiang, T. S. & Chan, C. T. Dynamically encircling an exceptional point in anti-parity-time symmetric systems: asymmetric mode switching for symmetry-broken modes. Light 8 , 88 (2019)..

Zhang, X. L. & Chan, C. T. Dynamically encircling exceptional points in a three-mode waveguide system. Commun. Phys. 2 , 63 (2019)..

Li, A. D. et al. Hamiltonian hopping for efficient chiral mode switching in encircling exceptional points. Phys. Rev. Lett. 125 , 187403 (2020)..

Yu, F. et al. General rules governing the dynamical encircling of an arbitrary number of exceptional points. Phys. Rev. Lett. 127 , 253901 (2021)..

Li, A. D. et al. Riemann-encircling exceptional points for efficient asymmetric polarization-locked devices. Phys. Rev. Lett. 129 , 127401 (2022)..

Shu, X. Q. et al. Fast encirclement of an exceptional point for highly efficient and compact chiral mode converters. Nat. Commun. 13 , 2123 (2022)..

Shu, X. Q. et al. Chiral transmission by an open evolution trajectory in a non-Hermitian system. Light Sci. Appl. 13 , 65 (2024)..

Liu, Q. J. et al. Efficient mode transfer on a compact silicon chip by encircling moving exceptional points. Phys. Rev. Lett. 124 , 153903 (2020)..

Liu, Q. J. et al. On-chip experiment for chiral mode transfer without enclosing an exceptional point. Phys. Rev. A 103 , 023531 (2021)..

Kim, K. H. et al. Direct observation of exceptional points in coupled photonic-crystal lasers with asymmetric optical gains. Nat. Commun. 7 , 13893 (2016)..

Weimann, S. et al. Topologically protected bound states in photonic parity–time-symmetric crystals. Nat. Mater. 16 , 433–438 (2017). .

Hodaei, H. et al. Enhanced sensitivity at higher-order exceptional points. Nature 548 , 187–191 (2017)..

Chen, W. J. et al. Exceptional points enhance sensing in an optical microcavity. Nature 548 , 192–196 (2017)..

Hokmabadi, M. P. et al. Non-hermitian ring laser gyroscopes with enhanced sagnac sensitivity. Nature 576 , 70–74 (2019)..

Park, J. H. et al. Symmetry-breaking-induced plasmonic exceptional points and nanoscale sensing. Nat. Phys. 16 , 462–468 (2020)..

Lin, Z. N. et al. Unidirectional invisibility induced by PT -symmetric periodic structures. Phys. Rev. Lett. 106 , 213901 (2011)..

Feng, L. et al. Experimental demonstration of a unidirectional reflectionless parity-time metamaterial at optical frequencies. Nat. Mater. 12 , 108–113 (2013)..

Feng, L. et al. Single-mode laser by parity-time symmetry breaking. Science 346 , 972–975 (2014)..

Laha, A. et al. Exceptional point and toward mode-selective optical isolation. ACS Photonics 7 , 967–974 (2020)..

Chuang, S. L. A coupled mode formulation by reciprocity and a variational principle. J. Lightwave Technol. 5 , 5–15 (1987)..

Abitan, H., Bohr, H. & Buchhave, P. Correction to the Beer-Lambert-Bouguer law for optical absorption. Appl. Opt. 47 , 5354–5357 (2008)..

Tang, Z., Chen, T. & Zhang, X. D. Highly efficient transfer of quantum state and robust generation of entanglement state around exceptional lines. Laser Photonics Rev. 18 , 2300794 (2024)..

Liao, K. et al. All-optical computing based on convolutional neural networks. Opto-Electron. Adv. 4 , 200060 (2021)..

Schumer, A. et al. Topo logical modes in a laser cavity through exceptional state transfer. Science 375 , 884–888 (2022)..

Hassan, A. U. et al. Chiral state conversion without encircling an exceptional point. Phys. Rev. A 96 , 052129 (2017)..

Nasari, H. et al. Observation of chiral state transfer without encircling an exceptional point. Nature 605 , 256–261 (2022)..

Views

Downloads

CSCD

Alert me when the article has been cited

Submit

Tools

Publicity Resources

No data

Related Author

No data

Related Institution

No data

⁰