Faraday and Kerr Effects in Right and Left-Handed Films and Layered Materials

Josh Lofy,Zhyrair Gevorkian,Vladimir Gasparian,Esther Jódar

doi:10.1515/rams-2020-0032

Abstract

Abstract In the present work, we study the rotations of the polarization of light propagating in right and left-handed films and layered structures. Through the use of complex values representing the rotations we analyze the transmission (Faraday effect) and reflections (Kerr effect) of light. It is shown that the real and imaginary parts of the complex angle of Faraday and Kerr rotations are odd and even functions for the refractive index n, respectively. In the thin film case with left-handed materials there are large resonant enhancements of the reflected Kerr angle that could be obtained experimentally. In the magnetic clock approach, used in the tunneling time problem, two characteristic time components are related to the real and imaginary portions of the complex Faraday rotation angle . The complex angle at the different propagation regimes through a finite stack of alternating right and left-handed materials is analyzed in detail. We found that, in spite of the fact that Re(θ) in the forbidden gap is almost zero, the Im(θ) changes drastically in both value and sign.

Highlights

Negative refractive index magneto-optical metamaterials, called left-handed materials (LHM), are a new type of artificial material characterized by having a permittivity ε and permeability μ both negative [1,2,3]
We have studied in this work the Faraday and Kerr rotations of light with angular frequency ω passing through a right-handed medium (RHM)/LHM film with thickness L, taking into account the multiple reflections from the boundaries
We found that the rotation and ellipticity of the transmitted or reflected light of the Faraday and Kerr effects are odd and even functions with respect to the refractive index n

Summary

Introduction

Negative refractive index magneto-optical metamaterials, called left-handed materials (LHM), are a new type of artificial material characterized by having a permittivity ε and permeability μ both negative [1,2,3]. The non-reciprocity of the Faraday and Kerr effects allow light to accumulate rotations of the same sign and magnitude for both forward and backward propagation and can be enhanced even further by additional round-trip reflections through the medium. We theoretically consider the Faraday rotation of light passing through a RHM/LHM film of thickness L taking into account multiple reflections in the boundaries without absorption. This exactly solvable simple model is chosen to present different aspects of RHM and LHM.

Right-handed and left-handed dielectric slab

Conclusion