Realization of a chiral photonic-crystal cavity with broken time-reversal symmetry
16 affiliations
- 1Applied Physics Graduate Program, Smalley-Curl Institute, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA
- 2Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA
- 3Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA
- 4Department of Physics, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
- 5Smalley-Curl Institute, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA
- 6Department of Physics, Villanova University, Villanova, PA, USA
- 7Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
- 8Department of Physics, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA
- 9Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA. [email protected]
- 10Rice Advanced Materials Institute, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA. [email protected]
- 11Smalley-Curl Institute, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA. [email protected]
- 12Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA. [email protected]
- 13Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA. [email protected]
- 14Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA. [email protected]
- 15Rice Advanced Materials Institute, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA. [email protected]
- 16Smalley-Curl Institute, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA. [email protected]
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.
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BibTeX
@article{kulkarni2026realization,
title = {{Realization of a chiral photonic-crystal cavity with broken time-reversal symmetry}},
author = {Kiran M. Kulkarni and Hongjing Xu and Fuyang Tay and Gustavo M. Rodriguez-Barrios and Dasom Kim and Alessandro Alabastri and Vasil Rokaj and Ceren B. Dağ and Andrey Baydin and Junichiro Kono},
journal = {Nature Communications},
year = {2026},
month = may,
doi = {10.1038/s41467-026-73446-w},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-73446-w},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Realization of a chiral photonic-crystal cavity with broken time-reversal symmetry
AU - Kiran M. Kulkarni
AU - Hongjing Xu
AU - Fuyang Tay
AU - Gustavo M. Rodriguez-Barrios
AU - Dasom Kim
AU - Alessandro Alabastri
AU - Vasil Rokaj
AU - Ceren B. Dağ
AU - Andrey Baydin
AU - Junichiro Kono
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/05/23
JO - Nature Communications
DO - 10.1038/s41467-026-73446-w
UR - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-73446-w
AB - 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.
SN - 2041-1723
ER -