Asymmetric transmission of terahertz waves using polar dielectrics

Cataloged from PDF version of article.Asymmetric wave transmission is a Lorentz reciprocal phenomenon, which can appear in the structures with broken symmetry. It may enable high forward-to-backward transmittance contrast, while transmission for one of the two opposite incidence directions is blocked. In this paper, it is demonstrated that ultrawideband, high-contrast asymmetric wave transmission can be obtained at terahertz frequencies in the topologically simple, i.e., one- or two-layer nonsymmetric gratings, which are entirely or partially made of a polar dielectric working in the ultralow-epsilon regime inspired by phonon-photon coupling. A variety of polar dielectrics with different characteristics can be used that gives one a big freedom concerning design. Simple criteria for estimating possible usefulness of a certain polar dielectric are suggested. Contrasts exceeding 80dB can be easily achieved without a special parameter adjustment. Stacking a high-e corrugated layer with a noncorrugated layer made of a polar dielectric, one can enhance transmission in the unidirectional regime. At large and intermediate angles of incidence, a better performance can be obtained owing to the common effect of nonsymmetric diffractions and directional selectivity, which is connected with the dispersion of the ultralow-e material. At normal incidence, strong asymmetry in transmission may occur in the studied structures as a purely diffraction effect. (C) 2014 Optical Society of Americ

Methyl 2-(methylthio)benzoate: the unique sulfur-containing sex pheromone of Phyllophaga crinita

The female-produced sex pheromone of Phyllophaga crinita (Burmeister) (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Melolonthinae; the adult has no common name) is identified as methyl 2-(methylthio)benzoate. This is the first identification of a sulfur-containing, long-distance, female-produced sex attractant from any insect taxa. The root-feeding larvae of this species are serious pests in many crops in Texas and Mexico. In field tests, many P. crinita males were captured in traps baited with the authentic compound. Interestingly, a heteroatom analog, methyl 2-methoxybenzoate, also captured P. crinita males, but only at a dose 10,000 times higher than the lowest tested dose of the authentic pheromon

One-way absorption of terahertz waves in rod-type and multilayer structures containing polar dielectrics

One-way absorption can be obtained at terahertz frequencies in low-profile rod-type and multilayer dielectric structures with broken spatial inversion symmetry, which contain either a rod layer or an ultrathin homogeneous layer made of a polar dielectric. Perfect absorption for one of the two opposite incidence directions and perfect reflection for the other one are observed at the edge of the polaritonic gap in a wide range of the incident angle variation, when the thickness of the entire structure is of the order of the incident wavelength. Moreover, this regime appears in a wide frequency range, in which the forward-to-backward absorption contrast is strong. The exploited mechanism is connected with the parameter adjustment that enables the location of the polaritonic gap of the polar dielectric, of which the lossy part of the structure is made, inside the stop band arising due to the periodicity of the lossless part of the structure that is made of a nondispersive dielectric. It also exploits absorption enhancement in the lossy part by backing it with the highly reflecting lossless part, which has alternating stop and pass bands. © 2014 American Physical Society

Effect of in-material losses on terahertz absorption, transmission, and reflection in photonic crystals made of polar dielectrics

The effect of the material absorption factor on terahertz absorption (A), transmittance (T), and reflectance (R) for slabs of PhC that comprise rods made of GaAs, a polar dielectric, is studied. The main goal was to illustrate how critical a choice of the absorption factor for simulations is and to indicate the importance of the possible modification of the absorption ability by using either active or lossy impurities. The spectra of A, T, and R are strongly sensitive to the location of the polaritonic gap with respect to the photonic pass and stop bands connected with periodicity that enables the efficient combination of the effects of material and structural parameters. It will be shown that the spectra can strongly depend on the utilized value of the material absorption factor. In particular, both narrow and wide absorption bands may appear owing to a variation of the material parameters with a frequency in the vicinity of the polaritonic gap. The latter are often achieved at wideband suppression of transmission, so that an ultra-wide stop band can appear as a result of adjustment of the stop bands having different origin. The results obtained at simultaneous variation of the absorption factor and frequency, and angle of incidence and frequency, indicate the possibility of the existence of wide ranges of tolerance, in which the basic features do remain. This allows for mitigating the accuracy requirements for the absorption factor in simulations and promises the efficient absorption of nonmonochromatic waves and beams with a wide angular spectrum. Suppression of narrowband effects in transmission is demonstrated at rather large values of the absorption factor, when they appear due to either the defect modes related to structural defects or dispersion inspired variations of the material parameters in the vicinity of the polaritonic gap. Comparison with auxiliary structures helps one to detect the common features and differences of homogeneous slabs and slabs of a PhC, which are made of GaAs. © 2015 AIP Publishing LLC