Scattering properties of PT-symmetric chiral metamaterials

The combination of gain and loss in optical systems that respect parity-time (PT)-symmetry has pointed recently to a variety of novel optical phenomena and possibilities. Many of them can be realized by combining the PT-symmetry concepts with metamaterials. Here we investigate the case of chiral metamaterials, showing that combination of chiral metamaterials with PT-symmetric gain-loss enables a very rich variety of phenomena and functionalities. Examining a simple one-dimensional chiral PT-symmetric system, we show that with normally incident waves the PT-symmetric and the chirality-related characteristics can be tuned independently and superimposed almost at will. On the other hand, under oblique incidence, chirality affects all the PT-related characteristics, leading also to novel and uncommon wave propagation features, such as asymmetric transmission and asymmetric optical activity and ellipticity. All these features are highly controllable both by chirality and by the angle of incidence, making PT-symmetric chiral metamaterials valuable in a large range of polarization-control-seeking applications.