Angular-dependent Klein tunneling in photonic graphene

TL;DR

This paper reports the first experimental observation of Klein tunneling in photonic graphene, demonstrating how barrier height influences angular transmission, with implications for understanding conductivity in graphene-like systems.

Contribution

It provides the first experimental measurement of angular dependence of Klein tunneling in a 2D photonic system, confirming theoretical predictions.

Findings

Klein tunneling observed at normal incidence in photonic graphene.

Increasing barrier height suppresses the decay of Klein transmission with angle.

Results align with Dirac equation predictions for relativistic particles.

Abstract

The Klein paradox consists in the perfect tunneling of relativistic particles through high potential barriers. As a curious feature of particle physics, it is responsible for the exceptional conductive properties of graphene. It was recently studied in the context of atomic condensates and topological photonics and phononics. While in theory the perfect tunneling holds only for normal incidence, so far the angular dependence of the Klein tunneling and its strong variation with the barrier height were not measured experimentally. In this work, we capitalize on the versatility of atomic vapor cells with paraxial beam propagation and index patterning by electromagnetically-induced transparency. We report the first experimental observation of perfect Klein transmission in a 2D photonic system (photonic graphene) at normal incidence and measure the angular dependence. Counter-intuitively, but in agreement with the Dirac equation, we observe that the decay of the Klein transmission versus angle is suppressed by increasing the barrier height, a key result for the conductivity of graphene and its analogues.