Abstract
Surface waves, named here as Dyakonov-Tamm waves, can exist at the planar interface of an isotropic dielectric material and a chiral sculptured thin film (STF). Due to the periodic nonhomogeneity of a chiral STF, the range of the refractive index of the isotropic material is smaller but the range of the propagation direction in the interface plane is much larger, in comparison to those for the existence of Dyakonov waves at the planar interface of an isotropic dielectric material and a columnar thin film. Dyakonov-Tamm waves could therefore be detected more easily than Dyakonov waves.
Highlights
Less than two decades ago, Dyakonov [1] theoretically predicted the propagation of a surface wave at the planar interface of an isotropic dielectric material and a positively uniaxial dielectric material with its optic axis wholly parallel to the interface plane
We must caution that the foregoing expressions are applicable to columnar thin film (CTF) produced by one particular experimental apparatus, but may have to be modified for CTFs produced by others on different apparatuses; we used these expressions for the numerical results presented for chiral sculptured thin film (STF) for illustration
We examined the phenomenon of surface-wave propagation at the planar interface of an isotropic dielectric material and a chiral sculptured thin film
Summary
Less than two decades ago, Dyakonov [1] theoretically predicted the propagation of a surface wave at the planar interface of an isotropic dielectric material and a positively uniaxial dielectric material with its optic axis wholly parallel to the interface plane. If ψ indicates the angle between the optic axis and the direction of surface-wave propagation, and ns is the refractive index of the isotropic dielectric material, the Dyakonov wave exists for rather narrow ranges of ψ and ns. Being a natural extension of a CTF, a chiral sculptured thin film (STF) was chosen as the periodically nonhomogeneous anisotropic material [7]. In formulating the surface-wave-propagation problem on the planar interface of an isotropic, homogeneous, dielectric material and a chiral STF, we adopted a methodology originally developed by Tamm in 1932 for a realistic Kronig-Penney model. Given the braiding of Dyakonov waves and Tamm states in this communication, we decided to name the surface wave at the planar interface of an isotropic, homogeneous, dielectric material and a chiral STF as the Dyakonov-Tamm wave. The dyadics employed can be treated as 3×3 matrixes [14, 15]
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