1 research outputs found
Transparent Perfect Mirror
A mirror that reflects light fully and yet is transparent appears
paradoxical. Current so-called transparent or "one-way" mirrors are not
perfectly reflective and thus can be distinguished from a standard mirror.
Constructing a transparent "perfect" mirror has profound implications for
security, privacy, and camouflage. However, such a hypothetical device cannot
be implemented in a passive structure. We demonstrate here a transparent
perfect mirror in a non-Hermitian configuration: an active optical cavity where
a certain prelasing gain extinguishes Poynting's vector at the device entrance.
At this threshold, all vestiges of the cavity's structural resonances are
eliminated and the device presents spectrally flat unity-reflectivity, thus,
becoming indistinguishable from a perfect mirror when probed optically across
the gain bandwidth. Nevertheless, the device is rendered transparent by virtue
of persisting amplified transmission resonances. We confirm these predictions
in two photonic realizations: a compact integrated active waveguide and a
macroscopic all-optical-fiber system.Comment: The paper is highlighted in Nature Photonics:
http://www.nature.com/nphoton/journal/v11/n6/full/nphoton.2017.90.html The
supplementary data is available in:
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/suppl/10.1021/acsphotonics.7b0005