Bianisotropy and magnetism in plasmonic gratings

Abstract

We present a simple design to achieve bianisotropy at visible wavelengths: an ultrathin plasmonic grating made of a gold grating covered by a thin flat layer of gold. We show experimentally and through simulations that the grating exhibits magneto-electric coupling and features asymmetric reflection and absorption, all that with a device thickness of a tenth of the operating wavelength. We compared the spectral results and retrieved the effective material parameters of different polarizations and devices. We show that both asymmetry and strong coupling between the incoming light and the optically interacting surfaces are required for obtaining asymmetric optical behavior in metasurfaces.