Effective spontaneous PT-symmetry breaking in hybridized metamaterials

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how hybridized metamaterials can be used to experimentally investigate spontaneous PT-symmetry breaking, revealing phenomena like perfect absorption, lasing, and reflection through tunable coupling and loss management.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach to study PT-symmetry breaking in metamaterials, showing how to achieve various symmetry-breaking effects and ideal PT-symmetry in passive systems.

Findings

Achieved coherent perfect absorption and laser action in metamaterials.

Demonstrated gain-induced complete reflection ($$ reflector).

Established effective PT-symmetry in passive metamaterials.

Abstract

We show that metamaterials can be used as a testing ground to investigate spontaneous symmetry breaking associated with non-Hermitian quantum systems. By exploring the interplay between near-field dipolar coupling and material absorption or gain, we demonstrate various spontaneous breaking processes of the $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetry for a series of effective Hamiltonians associated to the scattering matrix. By tuning the coupling parameter, coherent perfect absorption, laser action and gain-induced complete reflection ($\pi$ reflector) by using an ultra-thin metamaterial can be obtained. Moreover, an ideal $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetry can be established effectively in a passive system by exploring the balance between scattering and absorption loss using metamaterials.