Tunable lateral shifts of the reflected wave on the surface of an anisotropic chiral metamaterial

Abstract

The lateral shifts (i.e., the spatial GH shifts) of reflected wave from a uniaxial anisotropic chiral metamaterial slab are predicted based on the stationary-phase method. The two cases of the uniaxial chiral slab are investigated in detail. It is found that the negative uniaxial chiral slab can be realized for both the two cases as the group refraction of the left circularly polarized (LCP) wave is negative. The GH shifts of the perpendicular component (Δsp) are similar for both of the cases, which are enhanced at close-to-grazing incidence. However, the GH shifts of the parallel component (Δpp) can be enhanced near the Brewster angle. For case (I), by introducing a different chirality parameter and the thickness of the chiral slab, the transition between the positively and negatively enhanced GH shifts of the parallel component (Δpp) can be realized. For case (II), the magnitude and the position of the enhancement of the positively enhanced GH shifts (Δpp) can be tunable by adjusting the chirality and the thickness of the chiral slab.