Tuning the phase in asymmetric multilayers

TL;DR

This paper explores phase control in asymmetric multilayer optical cavities, demonstrating how layer arrangement influences reflectance and phase, and revealing a link between strong exciton coupling, topological darkness, and phase tuning.

Contribution

It introduces a novel analysis of asymmetric multilayer configurations, showing how layer sequence affects optical phase and reflectance, and connects strong exciton coupling with topological phase control.

Findings

Layer arrangement significantly alters reflectance spectra.

Hybridized resonance modes enable strong exciton coupling.

Topological darkness correlates with phase tuning.

Abstract

Phase modulation has come to be recognized as a fundamental paradigm for optical device design in applications involving the spatiotemporal control of optical wavefronts. Here, asymmetric resonant multilayer cavities based on the inclusion of absorptive and lossless layers combined with the ideal conductive metal allow for reflection and phase shift control in analogy with the Fabry-Perot system, which in its basic configuration has zero reflection and perfect transmission., the reflectivity of multilayers activated in a prism-coupled geometry and composed of numerous stack layers but built in different sequences has been examined. The layer's different arrangements, resulting in open and closed asymmetric multilayers, display reflectance spectra with distinct features as well as phase changes. For one of the studied multilayer arrangements, two hybridized resonance modes form a strong coupling with the exciton available from the red dye. As a result, energy-based topological considerations identify a correlation between exciton/polariton strong coupling, topological darkness, and phase tuning.