English

Maximal Violation of Kirchhoff's Law in Planar Heterostructures

Optics 2023-02-21 v1 Applied Physics

Abstract

Violating Kirchhoff's law has so far required nonreciprocal materials patterned in microstructures. In these configurations, the excitation of a guided or polaritonic mode that lies outside the light cone, often via gratings, was a requirement. Here, we describe how nonreciprocity manifests itself in pattern-free heterostructures. We demonstrate that a resonant mode in a dielectric spacer separating a nonreciprocal film from a back-reflector suffices to maximally violate Kirchhoff's law, and identify the minimal dielectric requirements for such functionality, which are satisfied by currently available materials.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2302.09373,
  title  = {Maximal Violation of Kirchhoff's Law in Planar Heterostructures},
  author = {Lu Wang and F. Javier García de Abajo and Georgia T. Papadakis},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2302.09373},
  year   = {2023}
}