{
  "abstract": "Chiral cavities offer an intriguing way to manipulate material properties by breaking fundamental symmetries. However, only a few chiral cavity implementations exhibiting broken time-reversal symmetry have been demonstrated, with most relying on either strong magnetic fields, circularly polarized Floquet driving, or ultrastrong coupling between cavity modes and matter excitations. Here, we present a one-dimensional terahertz photonic-crystal cavity that exhibits broken time-reversal symmetry. The cavity consists of a silicon wafer sandwiched between InSb wafers. By exploiting the nonreciprocal terahertz response of a magnetoplasma and the low electron effective mass in InSb, a circularly polarized cavity mode at 0.67 THz under a modest magnetic field of 0.3 T, with a quality factor exceeding 50 is realized. Temperature-, magnetic field-, and polarization-dependent measurements and simulations demonstrate the chiral cavity with broken time-reversal symmetry, providing a robust platform for exploring chiral light–matter interactions and vacuum dressed quantum condensed matter in the terahertz regime. Researchers realized the first truly chiral terahertz cavity with time-reversal-symmetry broken vacuum fields, with near-unity ellipticity at 0.66 THz and Q>50 under a 0.3 T field, offering a robust platform for chiral light–matter interactions.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "Applied Physics Graduate Program, Smalley-Curl Institute, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA",
    "Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA",
    "Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA",
    "Department of Physics, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA",
    "Smalley-Curl Institute, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA",
    "Department of Physics, Villanova University, Villanova, PA, USA",
    "Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA",
    "Department of Physics, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA",
    "Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA. baydin@rice.edu",
    "Rice Advanced Materials Institute, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA. baydin@rice.edu",
    "Smalley-Curl Institute, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA. baydin@rice.edu",
    "Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA. kono@rice.edu",
    "Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA. kono@rice.edu",
    "Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA. kono@rice.edu",
    "Rice Advanced Materials Institute, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA. kono@rice.edu",
    "Smalley-Curl Institute, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA. kono@rice.edu"
  ],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 10,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0,
        1
      ],
      "name": "Kiran M. Kulkarni"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        2
      ],
      "name": "Hongjing Xu",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-4918-8502"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        3
      ],
      "name": "Fuyang Tay",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-0264-5104"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        1,
        4
      ],
      "name": "Gustavo M. Rodriguez-Barrios",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-9767-6108"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0,
        1
      ],
      "name": "Dasom Kim",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-2331-4526"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        1,
        4
      ],
      "name": "Alessandro Alabastri",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-6180-8052"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        5
      ],
      "name": "Vasil Rokaj",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-0627-7292"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        6,
        7
      ],
      "name": "Ceren B. Dağ",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-0492-1651"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        8,
        9,
        10
      ],
      "name": "Andrey Baydin",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-2567-3506"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        11,
        12,
        13,
        14,
        15
      ],
      "name": "Junichiro Kono",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-4195-0577"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/83vgr29mms2zq.bib",
  "cited_by": 12,
  "doi": "10.1038/s41467-026-73446-w",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "83vgr29mms2zq",
  "issns": [
    "2041-1723"
  ],
  "landing_url": "https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-73446-w",
  "language": "en",
  "licence": "CC-BY-NC-ND",
  "licence_label": "CC BY-NC-ND",
  "licence_source": "journal",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "openalex",
      "2504|Metamaterials and Metasurfaces Applications"
    ]
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  "openalex": "W4417080780",
  "pdf_url": "https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-73446-w_reference.pdf",
  "pmcid": "PMC13385791",
  "pmid": "42173880",
  "published": "2026-05-23",
  "publisher": "Nature Portfolio",
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/83vgr29mms2zq.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-11-07T13:21:06Z",
      "native_id": "W4417080780",
      "source": "openalex",
      "url": "https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-73446-w"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "chemistry",
      "origin": "openalex:2504|Metamaterials and Metasurfaces Applications",
      "subfield": "materials-polymers"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Realization of a chiral photonic-crystal cavity with broken time-reversal symmetry",
  "title_text": "Realization of a chiral photonic-crystal cavity with broken time-reversal symmetry",
  "type": "peer-reviewed",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-08T13:20:56Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/83vgr29mms2zq",
  "venue": "Nature Communications",
  "versions": []
}