Vortex-induced Shear Polaritons

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel mechanism for generating hyperbolic shear polaritons (HShPs) using vortex waves as excitation sources, revealing controllable asymmetric and symmetric modes in hyperbolic materials.

Contribution

It demonstrates that vortex waves can induce HShPs without off-diagonal elements and explores the topological charge's role in mode symmetry and transitions.

Findings

Vortex waves can generate HShPs in hyperbolic materials.

Tuning off-diagonal imaginary components controls mode symmetry.

Parity of topological charges affects field distribution.

Abstract

Hyperbolic shear polaritons (HShPs) emerge with widespread attention as a new class of polariton modes with broken symmetry due to shear lattices. In this letter, we find a new mechanism of generating HShPs. When utilizing vortex waves as excitation sources of hyperbolic materials without off-diagonal elements, HShPs will appear. In addition, this asymmetric HShPs can be recovered as symmetric modes away from the source, with a critical transition mode between the left-skewed and right-skewed HShPs, via tuning the magnitude of the off-diagonal imaginary component and controlling the topological charge of vortex source. It is worth mentioning that we explore the influence of parity of topological charges on the field distribution and demonstrate these exotic phenomena from numerical and analytical perspectives. Our results will promote new opportunities for both HShPs and vortex waves, widening the horizon for various hyperbolic materials based on vortex sources and offering a new degree of freedom to control various kinds of polaritons.