419 research outputs found
Coherent Perfect Rotation
Two classes of conservative, linear, optical rotary effects (optical activity
and Faraday rotation) are distinguished by their behavior under time reversal.
In analogy with coherent perfect absorption, where counterpropagating light
fields are controllably converted into other degrees of freedom, we show that
only time-odd (Faraday) rotation is capable of coherent perfect rotation in a
linear and conservative medium, by which we mean the complete transfer of
counterpropagating coherent light fields into their orthogonal polarization.
This highlights the necessity of time reversal odd processes (not just
absorption) and coherence in perfect mode conversion and may inform device
design.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
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