Lattice-plasmon induced asymmetric transmission in two-dimensional chiral arrays

Abstract

Asymmetric transmission - direction-selective control of electromagnetic transmission between two ports - is an important phenomenon typically exhibited by two-dimensional chiral systems. Here, we study this phenomenon in chiral plasmonic metasurfaces supporting lattice plasmons modes. We show, both numerically and experimentally, that asymmetric transmission can be achieved through an unbalanced excitation of such lattice modes by circularly polarized light of opposite handedness. The excitation efficiencies of the lattice modes, and hence the strength of the asymmetric transmission, can be controlled by engineering the in-plane scattering of the individual plasmonic nanoparticles such that the maximum scattering imbalance occurs along one of the in-plane diffraction orders of the metasurface. Our study also shows that, contrary to the case of a non-diffractive metasurface, the lattice-plasmon-enabled asymmetric transmission can occur at normal incidence for cases where the metasurface is composed of chiral or achiral nanoparticles possessing 4-fold rotational symmetry.