Unidirectional band gaps in uniformly magnetized two-dimensional magnetophotonic crystals

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how unidirectional light propagation can be achieved in 2D magnetophotonic crystals with uniform magnetization by applying magnetic group theory, broadening the understanding of one-way photonic devices.

Contribution

The study introduces a group theory-based method to realize unidirectional behavior in uniformly magnetized 2D magnetophotonic crystals, expanding beyond previous domain-based approaches.

Findings

Unidirectional transmission demonstrated numerically.

Group theory approach generalizes previous methods.

Symmetry lowering enables one-way behavior.

Abstract

By exploiting the concepts of magnetic group theory we show how unidirectional behavior can be obtained in two-dimensional magneto-photonic crystals (MOPhC) with uniform magnetization. This group theory approach generalizes all previous investigations of one-way MOPhCs including those based on the use of antiparallel magnetic domains in the elementary crystal cell. Here, the theoretical approach is illustrated for one MOPhC example where unidirectional behavior is obtained by appropriately lowering the geometrical symmetry of the elementary motifs. One-way transmission is numerically demonstrated for a photonic crystal slice.