Intrinsic chirality of dielectric metasurfaces unlocked by resonant chiral modes

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Kumar, Brijesh, Tonkaev, Pavel, Toftul, Ivan, Chen, Yihong, Unnikrishnan, Vaishakh, Mathew, Albert, Kumar, Anshuman, Kuruoglu, Furkan, Yesilkoy, Filiz, Kivshar, Yuri
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2026
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author Kumar, Brijesh
Tonkaev, Pavel
Toftul, Ivan
Chen, Yihong
Unnikrishnan, Vaishakh
Mathew, Albert
Kumar, Anshuman
Kuruoglu, Furkan
Yesilkoy, Filiz
Kivshar, Yuri
author_facet Kumar, Brijesh
Tonkaev, Pavel
Toftul, Ivan
Chen, Yihong
Unnikrishnan, Vaishakh
Mathew, Albert
Kumar, Anshuman
Kuruoglu, Furkan
Yesilkoy, Filiz
Kivshar, Yuri
contents Controlling optical chirality at the subwavelength scales is essential for many applications of nanophotonic structures in polarization optics, sensing, and nonlinear photonics. Achieving a strong chiroptical response in planar dielectric metasurfaces without intrinsically chiral building blocks (or "meta-atoms") remains challenging. The recent theoretical study [ACS Photonics 12, 6717 (2025)] predicted that bilayer metasurfaces with rotated C$_4$-symmetric apertures can exhibit pronounced chiral response originating from resonant chiral photonic modes realizing maximum chirality under the mode strong coupling. That observation uncovers a novel mechanism of metasurface chirality. Here, we confirm experimentally this novel concept and demonstrate resonantly enhanced circular dichroism in the near-infrared frequency range. We fabricate a free-standing silicon membrane metasurface that is nominally achiral. When out-of-plane symmetry is broken by a thin PMMA layer, it unlocks and activates a strong chiral response. The observed circular dichroism is explained by the properties of chiral photonic modes, and it is governed by interlayer coupling and symmetry breaking, in agreement with theoretical predictions. These results establish bilayer metasurfaces as a simple and versatile platform for engineering strong mode-induced chirality in compact planar photonic metadevices.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_11366
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Intrinsic chirality of dielectric metasurfaces unlocked by resonant chiral modes
Kumar, Brijesh
Tonkaev, Pavel
Toftul, Ivan
Chen, Yihong
Unnikrishnan, Vaishakh
Mathew, Albert
Kumar, Anshuman
Kuruoglu, Furkan
Yesilkoy, Filiz
Kivshar, Yuri
Optics
Controlling optical chirality at the subwavelength scales is essential for many applications of nanophotonic structures in polarization optics, sensing, and nonlinear photonics. Achieving a strong chiroptical response in planar dielectric metasurfaces without intrinsically chiral building blocks (or "meta-atoms") remains challenging. The recent theoretical study [ACS Photonics 12, 6717 (2025)] predicted that bilayer metasurfaces with rotated C$_4$-symmetric apertures can exhibit pronounced chiral response originating from resonant chiral photonic modes realizing maximum chirality under the mode strong coupling. That observation uncovers a novel mechanism of metasurface chirality. Here, we confirm experimentally this novel concept and demonstrate resonantly enhanced circular dichroism in the near-infrared frequency range. We fabricate a free-standing silicon membrane metasurface that is nominally achiral. When out-of-plane symmetry is broken by a thin PMMA layer, it unlocks and activates a strong chiral response. The observed circular dichroism is explained by the properties of chiral photonic modes, and it is governed by interlayer coupling and symmetry breaking, in agreement with theoretical predictions. These results establish bilayer metasurfaces as a simple and versatile platform for engineering strong mode-induced chirality in compact planar photonic metadevices.
title Intrinsic chirality of dielectric metasurfaces unlocked by resonant chiral modes
topic Optics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.11366