Extraordinary transverse magneto-optical Kerr effect in a superlens

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that a magneto-optical superlens with negative index material can exhibit an extraordinary transverse magneto-optical Kerr effect, with losses playing a crucial role in enabling this phenomenon.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of a magneto-optical superlens that produces an enhanced Kerr effect, highlighting the importance of material losses for observing this phenomenon.

Findings

Magneto-optical superlens acts as an ideal optical filter.

Losses are essential for the Kerr effect in this system.

Enhanced transverse Kerr effect beyond conventional limits.

Abstract

It has been shown that a slab of a negative index material can behave as a superlens enhancing the imaging resolution beyond the wavelength limit. We show here that if such a slab possesses in addition some magneto-optical activity, it could act as an ideal optical filter and exhibit an extraordinary transverse magneto-optical Kerr effect. Moreover, we show that losses, which spoil the imaging resolution of these lenses, are a necessary ingredient to observe this effect.