Enhanced Surface Photon Drag on Plasmonic Metamaterials: A Fizeau-Doppler Shift Study

TL;DR

This study numerically investigates the Fizeau-Doppler shift in moving plasmonic metamaterials, revealing enhanced phase shifts and sign transitions that could benefit optical gyroscope and accelerometer applications.

Contribution

It demonstrates a significant enhancement of surface photon drag effects in plasmonic metamaterials and uncovers a critical thickness-induced phase shift transition.

Findings

Phase shift up to 10,000 times larger than normal modes

Observation of positive and negative photon drag effects

Abrupt sign transition at critical silver film thickness

Abstract

In this work, we numerically study the Fizeau-Doppler shift of surface modes in a moving plasmonic metamaterial. At proper surface plasmon resonance conditions, a slow group velocity is resulted in the metamaterials, and our simulation indicates a phase shift up to 4 orders of magnitude larger than the normal mode. In addition, both appreciable positive and negative photon drag could be observed. We also found an abrupt transition in the sign of phase shift when silver film reaches a critical thickness. This opens new opportunities in applications such as compact optical gyroscopes and accelerometers.