Surface plasmon polaritons in a waveguide composed of Weyl semimetals with different symmetries

Abstract

The peculiar topological properties of Weyl semimetals (WSMs) lead to unusual and unique optical properties. We investigate novel features of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) in a slot waveguide comprised of two semi-infinite WSMs with different symmetries, one with broken time reversal symmetry (TRS) and the other with broken inversion symmetry. We consider Voigt and Faraday configurations for SPPs at the interface of the WSM with broken TRS. We demonstrate that in the Voigt configuration this structure supports unidirectional SPP modes above the bulk plasmon frequency while it shows a non-reciprocal bidirectional dispersion for surface plasmon polaritons below the bulk plasmon frequency. In particular, we show that the chiral nature of the SPPs can be tuned by the topological properties and chemical potential of the WSMs. Moreover, in the Faraday configuration we find a tunable gap in the SPP dispersion. The studied structures possessing these exotic features may be employed as one of the building blocks of the chiral optoelectronic devices.