High-directionality spin-selective routing of photons in plasmonic nanocircuits

Youqiao Ma; Bo Liu; Zhiqin Huang; Jinhua Li; Zhanghua Han; Di Wu; Jun Zhou; Yuan Ma; Qiang Wu; Hiroshi Maeda

doi:10.1039/D1NR05733B

High-directionality spin-selective routing of photons in plasmonic nanocircuits†

Youqiao Ma,

*^a Bo Liu,^a Zhiqin Huang,^a Jinhua Li,^a Zhanghua Han,

^b Di Wu,

^c Jun Zhou,

^d Yuan Ma,^e Qiang Wu

^f and Hiroshi Maeda^g

Author affiliations

* Corresponding authors

^a School of Physics and Optoelectronic Engineering, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, China
E-mail: mayouqiao188@hotmail.com

^b Shandong Key Laboratory of Optics and Photonic Devices, School of Physics and Electronics, Shandong Normal University, Jinan 250358, China

^c School of Physics and Microelectronics, Key Laboratory of Materials Physics, Ministry of Education, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, Henan 450052, China

^d Institute of Photonics, Faculty of Science, Ningbo University, Ningbo 315211, China

^e Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada

^f Department of physics and electrical engineering, Northumbria University, Newcastle, NE18ST UK

^g Department of Information and Communication Engineering, Fukuoka Institute of Technology, Fukuoka 811-0295, Japan

Abstract

Efficient on-chip manipulation of photon spin is of crucial importance in developing future integrated nanophotonics as is electron spin in spintronics. The unidirectionality induced by the interaction between spin and orbital angular momenta suffers low efficiency in classical macroscopic optics, while it can be highly enhanced on subwavelength scales with suitable architectures. Here we propose and demonstrate a spin-sorting achiral split-ring coupler to unidirectionally excite dielectric-loaded plasmonic modes in two independent waveguides. We found experimentally that the impinging light with different spin can be selectively directed into one of two branching plasmonic waveguides with a directionality contrast up to 15.1 dB. A circular-helicity-independent compact beam splitter is also realized demonstrating great potential in designing complex interconnect nanocircuits. The illustrated approach is believed to open new avenues for developing advanced optical functionalities with a flexible degree of freedom in manipulation of on-chip chirality within chiral optics.

Nanoscale

High-directionality spin-selective routing of photons in plasmonic nanocircuits†

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