Chiral light in twisted Fabry-P\'erot cavities

TL;DR

This paper theoretically designs chiral Fabry-Pérot cavities using anisotropic van der Waals materials to support electromagnetic modes with specific handedness, enabling potential chiral light-matter interactions.

Contribution

It introduces a novel design of chiral Fabry-Pérot cavities with tunable handedness using anisotropic photonic crystal mirrors made of As₂S₃.

Findings

Cavities support modes of specific electromagnetic handedness due to mirror chirality.

Twist angle controls the cavity's chiral properties and mode handedness.

Potential for coupling chiral light with chiral molecules in tunable cavities.

Abstract

Fundamental studies of the interaction of chiral light with chiral matter are important for the development of techniques that allow handedness-selective optical detection of chiral organic molecules. One approach to achieve this goal is the creation of a Fabry-P\'erot cavity that supports eigenmodes with a desired electromagnetic handedness, which interacts differently with left and right molecular enantiomers. In this paper, we theoretically study chiral Fabry-P\'erot cavities with mirrors comprising one-dimensional photonic crystal slabs made of van der Waals As$_2$S$_3$, a material with one of the highest known in-plane anisotropy. By utilizing the anisotropy degree of freedom provided by As$_2$S$_3$, we design Fabry-P\'erot cavities with constitutional and configurational geometrical chiralities. We demonstrate that in cavities with constitutional chirality, electromagnetic modes of left or right handedness exist due to the chirality of both mirrors, often referred to as handedness preserving mirrors in the literature. At the same time, cavities with configurational chirality support modes of both handednesses due to chiral morphology of the entire structure, set by the twist angle between the optical axes of the upper and lower non-chiral anisotropic mirrors. The developed chiral Fabry-P\'erot cavities can be tuned to the technologically available distance between the mirrors by properly twisting them, making such systems a prospective platform for the coupling of chiral light with chiral matter.