Nonreciprocal reflection of mid-infrared light by highly doped InAs at low magnetic fields

Abstract

We report an experimental observation of room-temperature nonreciprocal reflection of mid-infrared light from planar highly doped InAs surfaces at low magnetic fields ranging from 0.07 T to 0.16 T. Using ellipsometry, we demonstrate that the amplitude ratio and phase shift of reflected light are nonreciprocal in the Voigt configuration. We also demonstrate using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy that the nonreciprocal reflectance contrast (the difference in reflectance in opposite directions) increases with the magnitude of the magnetic field for p-polarized light. Our work is a step toward the practical implementation of nonreciprocal thermal emitters and absorbers and applications such as remote magnetic field sensing.