Surface plasmon polaritons in topological insulator

Abstract

We study surface plasmon polaritons on topological insulator-vacuum interface. When the time-reversal symmetry is broken due to ferromagnetic coupling, the surface states exhibit magneto-optical Kerr effect. This effect gives rise to a novel transverse type surface plasmon polariton, besides the longitudinal type. In specific, these two types contain three different channels, corresponding to the pole of determinant of Fresnel reflection matrix. All three channels of surface plasmon polaritons display tight confinement, long lifetime and show strong light-matter coupling with a dipole emitter.