Bulk Plasmon Polariton Modes in Hyperbolic Metamaterials for Giant Enhancement of the Transverse Magneto-Optical Kerr Effect.

We demonstrate a concept for the giant enhancement of the transverse magneto-optical Kerr effect (TMOKE) using bulk plasmon polariton (BPP) modes in non-magnetic multilayer hyperbolic metamaterials (HMMs). Since the BPP modes are excited through the attenuated total reflection (ATR) mechanism, using a Si-based prism-coupler, we considered a single dielectric magneto-optical (MO) spacer between the prism and the HMM. The working wavelength was estimated, using the effective medium approach for a semi-infinite dielectric-plasmonic multilayer, considering the region where the system exhibits type II HMM dispersion relations. Analytical results, by means of the scattering matrix method (SMM), were used to explain the physical principle behind our concept. Numerical results for giant TMOKE values (close to their maximum theoretical values, ±1) were obtained using the finite element method (FEM), applying the commercial software COMSOL Multiphysics. Our proposal comprises a simple and experimentally feasible structure that enables the study of MO phenomena in HMMs, which may find application in future nanostructured magnetoplasmonic metamaterials for active nanophotonic devices.

All-Dielectric Chiral Metasurfaces Based on Crossed-Bowtie Nanoantennas.

Circular dichroism spectroscopy is a technique used to discriminate molecular chirality, which is essential in fields like biology, chemistry, or pharmacology where different chiral agents often show different biological activities. Nevertheless, due to the inherently weak molecular-chiroptical activity, this technique is limited to high concentrations or large analyte volumes. Finding novel ways to enhance the circular dichroism would boost the performance of these techniques. So far, the enhancement of light-matter interaction mediated by plasmons is the most common way to develop chiral plasmonic structures with extraordinarily strong chiroptical responses. However, absorptive losses of metals at optical frequencies has hindered its practical use in many scenarios. In this work, we propose an all-dielectric low-loss chiral metasurface with unit cells built by high-refractive-index crossed-bowtie nanoantennas. These unit cells, built of silicon, strongly increase the chiroptical effect through the simultaneous interaction of their electric and magnetic modes, which in contrast to other recent proposals shows at the same time a high concentration of the electric field in its gap that leads to the presence of hotspots. The proposed structure exhibits a circular dichroism spectra up to 3-fold higher than that of previous proposals that use complex plasmonic or hybrid nanostructures, making it a clear alternative to develop low-loss metasurfaces with potential applications in chiral target sensing/biosensing. For completeness, single triangular shaped and symmetric (achiral) bowtie nanostructures were also studied as possible candidates for a detection up to the single-molecule level due the lack of a circular dichroism background of the nanostructures themselves.