Dissipation engineered directional filter for quantum ratchets

Abstract

We demonstrate transport rectification in a hermitian Hamiltonian quantum ratchet by a dissipative, dynamic impurity. While the bulk of the ratchet supports transport in both directions, the properly designed loss function of the local impurity acts as a direction-dependent filter for the moving states. We analyse this scheme theoretically by making use of Floquet-S-Matrix theory. In addition, we provide the direct experimental observation of one-way transmittance in periodically modulated plasmonic waveguide arrays containing a local impurity with engineered losses.