Kerr Nonlinearity Induced Nonreciprocal Chirality Revealed from a Hybrid Helical Metamaterial Platform Integrated into a 1D All-Dielectric Topological Insulator System

Photonic topological insulators have gained significant interest due to their ability to generate topologically protected edge states, which facilitate precise control and manipulation of light propagation despite the possible presence of imperfections, impurities, defects, and disorders in photonic crystals [1-2]. This unique feature makes them promising candidates for application areas in quantum information processing, advanced waveguide systems, and next-generation photonic integrated circuits [1-2]. The integration of metamaterials with PTI systems opens up further control over their quantum photonic properties, which is the basis of our work. We propose to utilize a 1D PTI system from repetitive layers of TiO₂ and SiO₂ to enhance the chiroptical response of helical heterostructure metamaterials composed of Au and Si subsegments. We theoretically demonstrated ultimate chirality response from our plasmonic topological system. To further investigate their nonlinear optical performance based on Kerr nonlinearity, we also show and discuss the nonreciprocal chiral light transmission.

[1]Hafezi, M., et al., Nat. Photon. 7,1001–5, 2013.

[2]Kilic, U., et al. Adv. Func. Mat. 31.20:2010329, 2021.