Optical analogues of quantum chirality

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that quantum chirality phenomena in graphene can be simulated using optical structures, revealing quantitative analogies in transmission properties across different materials.

Contribution

It introduces a method to mimic quantum chirality in optics using various material types, establishing a link between optical and quantum transmission behaviors.

Findings

Optical structures can replicate quantum chirality transmission coefficients.

Analogies between optical and quantum parameters are quantitatively established.

Propagation of optical fields and quantum wavefunctions show similar behavior in the studied regimes.

Abstract

We show that the quantum chirality of charge carriers in graphene can be mimicked in optical structures. More precisely, we demonstrate that the particular form of the transmission coefficient at an interface in graphene between regions with different parameters can be retrieved in optics in either isotropic, gyrotropic and electro-optic materials or in complex conjugate materials. Quantitative analogies are found, at least in some parameter range, between optical and quantum parameters for which the transmission coefficient is similar in the optical and quantum cases, and hence the optical fields and quantum wavefunctions propagate in a similar manner.