Tailoring Optical Vortical Dichroism with Stereometamaterials

Abstract

Abstract Chiroptical response, investigating the interaction between photonic angular momenta and chiral media, is widely applied in optics and material science. In photonic spin angular momentum (SAM) dimension, tailoring circular dichroism (CD) is realized by varying chiral metamaterials for compact circular polarizers and enantiomer sensing. However, in photonic orbital angular momentum (OAM) dimension, tailorable chiroptical property by artificial metamaterials at a fixed operating wavelength remains elusive. Here, it is proposed and demonstrated that twisted stereometamaterials can yield OAM‐dependent tailorable vortical dichroism (VD) ranging from −97% to +98%. Engineering the geometrical parameters and symmetry of the twisted stereometamaterials can flexibly control the spectral characteristics of VD measurements such as sign, magnitude, and position. The twisted stereometamaterials, managing the transmission behaviors of light with various OAM, holds great promise for developing miniaturized components in integrated photonics and chiroptical spectroscopy.