One-way helical electromagnetic wave propagation supported by magnetized plasma
Abstract
In this paper we reveal the presence of photonic one-way helical surface states in a simple natural system - magnetized plasma. The application of an external magnetic field to a bulk plasma body not only breaks time-reversal-symmetry but also leads to separation of Equi-Frequency Contour surfaces (EFCs) to form topologically nontrivial gaps in k space. Interestingly, these EFCs support topologically protected surface states. We numerically investigate an interface between magnetized plasma, using a realistic model for parameter dispersion, and vacuum, to confirm the existence of one-way scatter-immune helical surface states. Unlike previous proposals for achieving photonic one-way propagation, our scheme does not require the use of artificial structures and should therefore be simple to implement experimentally.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1410.4596,
title = {One-way helical electromagnetic wave propagation supported by magnetized plasma},
author = {Biao Yang and Mark Lawrence and Wenlong Gao and Qinghua Guo and Shuang Zhang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1410.4596},
year = {2014}
}
Comments
10 pages, 2 figures