Surface Dyakonov-Cherenkov Radiation

TL;DR

This paper introduces surface Dyakonov-Cherenkov radiation, a new phenomenon where directional surface waves are emitted by charged particles near birefringent crystals, enabling enhanced particle detection and velocity measurement.

Contribution

It presents the discovery of surface Dyakonov-Cherenkov radiation, highlighting its dependence on particle trajectory and velocity, and its potential for compact, highly sensitive Cherenkov detectors.

Findings

Radiation is highly sensitive to particle trajectory and velocity.

Significant radiation enhancement near the Cherenkov threshold.

Potential for compact, all-dielectric particle detectors.

Abstract

Recent advances in engineered material technologies (e.g., photonic crystals, metamaterials, plasmonics, etc) provide valuable tools to control Cherenkov radiation. In all these approaches, however, the designed materials interact only with the particle velocity to affect Cherenkov radiation, while the influence of the particle trajectory is generally negligible. Here, we report on surface Dyakonov-Cherenkov radiation, i.e. the emission of directional Dyakonov surface waves from a swift charged particle moving atop a birefringent crystal. This new type of Cherenkov radiation is highly susceptible to both the particle velocity and trajectory, e.g. we observe a sharp radiation enhancement when the particle trajectory falls in the vicinity of a particular direction. Moreover, close to the Cherenkov threshold, such a radiation enhancement can be orders of magnitude higher than that obtained in traditional Cherenkov detectors. These distinct properties allow us to determine simultaneously the magnitude and direction of particle velocities on a compact platform. The surface Dyakonov-Cherenkov radiation studied in this work not only adds a new degree of freedom for particle identification, but also provides an all-dielectric route to construct compact Cherenkov detectors with enhanced sensitivity.