A broadband optical isolator based on chiral plasmonic-metamaterial design

Abstract

We theoretically propose a novel achromatic optical isolator based on circular dichroism in metamaterials of twisted chains of metallic nanoparticles. The suggested optical isolator consists of an input polarizer, followed by quarter-wave plate, then a circular dichroism material, another quarter-wave plate, and an output polarizer. In contrast to the most commonly used optical isolators, the current scheme does not use magnetic field and does not change the polarization plane.