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Helicity-Preserving Omnidirectional Plasmonic Mirror

Shiyi Xiao, Holger Mhlenbernd, Guixin Li, Mitchell Kenney, Fu Liu, Thomas Zentgraf,
Shuang Zhang, and Jensen Li*
Helicity of light, the spin angular momentum of photons, plays
a fundamental role from classical to quantum optics. It is wellknown that the helicity of light is reversed when reflected from
a normal mirror. However, under certain circumstances, it is
desired that the helicity of light can be preserved for arbitrary
incident angle. The recent developments of plasmonic metasurfaces have opened up unique and unconventional gateways
toward manipulation of the phase, amplitude, and polarization
state of light.[112] While a metasurface usually consists of only
a single layer of plasmonic or dielectric structures with thicknesses much less than a wavelength, the resonating nature
of these structures provides an unusually strong response in
light-matter interaction. Interestingly, polarization conversion
plays a central role in the operation of several prevalent types
of metasurfaces. For example, a metasurface constructed from
V-shaped nanoantennas scatters a linearly polarized light into
its orthogonal linear polarization (LP) with well controlled
phases.[1,2] Furthermore, metasurfaces constructed from nanoantennas with variable orientations impart a geometric phase
profile to the opposite circular polarization (CP).[612] These
indicate the potential capability of manipulating polarization by
an ultrathin metasurface.[1322] For example, the half(quarter)wave plate can be designed with a phase delay between two
orthogonal linear polarizations reflected by a metasurface with
a metal backplane.[1315] Moreover, a metasurface wave plate can
act as an antenna substrate for generating circularly polarized
radiation. It works by having reflection phases of /2 and /2
for linear polarization along two orthogonal directions.[23,24]
Multiple polarization couplings in a FabryProt-like cavity was
also used to enhance the linear polarization conversion efficiency.[16] Chiral mirrors, employing a bandgap of particular
circular polarization, can be used to manipulate the reflection
characteristics of CP wave.[2528] However, all the above mechanisms for polarization control are applied conventionally to only
a particular design angle, very often at normal incidence, and,
therefore, lacking a unified design framework of polarization
control, guaranteed to work for all angles at the same time. As
we shall see, we show that a metasurface with subwavelength
thickness can potentially overcome such angular limitation if
Dr. S. Xiao, Dr. G. Li, M. Kenney, Dr. F. Liu,
Prof. S. Zhang, Dr. J. Li
School of Physics and Astronomy
University of Birmingham
Birmingham B15 2TT, UK
E-mail: j.li@bham.ac.uk
H. Mhlenbernd, Prof. T. Zentgraf
Department of Physics
University of Paderborn
Warburger Strae 100, Paderborn D-33098, Germany

DOI: 10.1002/adom.201500705

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DOI: 10.1002/adom.201500705

we can regard a metasurface as an effectively homogeneous

boundary. This approach allows us to formulate the necessary
condition to have all angle operations automatically.
In this work, we present a near infrared (NIR) experimental
realization in designing all-angle polarization control for both
CP light and LP light based on a framework of artificial electromagnetic boundaries (AEBs) to control polarization directly,
rather than relying on optimizing routes. Our framework is
not a trivial extension from tuning the reflection phases of
two decoupled linear polarizations at normal incidence. It is
because at a general angle of incidence, a linear polarized incident light is partially converted to its cross-polarization state
and partially remained in the co-polarization state. In particular,
we demonstrate a reflective metasurface with engineered resonating plasmonic structures to realize an omnidirectional helicity-preserving mirror. Such a helicity-preserving mirror that
reflects CP light to its co-circular polarization at any angle of
incidence (measured helicity-preserving efficiency over 91% for
incidence angles up to 60) is in contrast to a common mirror
(ideally a perfect electric conductor) that always reflects a CP
light to its cross-polarization. Similar efficiency and angular
range of operation are observed for cross-linear polarization
conversion as well. The demand in filling up this gap is also
related to the recent efforts in restoring duality symmetry in
macroscopic electromagnetism.[29] The restoration would allow
one to study light-matter interactions of various photonic nanostructures within a framework of helicity-related conservation
laws.[30] Ensuring CP and LP conservation and complete conversion at arbitrary angles is of advantage in infrared or optical
regime, for its potential applications in various quantum optics
applications in which both CP and LP are often used interchangeably to represent the state of photon (qubit) in quantum
optics applications.[31,32]
The design of our metasurface is shown in Figure 1a. It consists of a periodic array of anisotropic plasmonic structures on
top of a flat metal substrate separated by a dielectric spacer. In
this work, we are interested in the case that the thickness of the
metasurface (/10) and the size of individual plasmonic structures (/4) are small enough compared to the wavelength. It
makes the metasurface effectively homogeneous with local
response. Then, the metasurface can be approximated as an
AEB, which can be written as a boundary condition[33,34] (with
i t
HeavisideLorentz units and a time-harmonic factor e )
z
=0
2

E x iH z cot x = 0
2
E z + iH x cot

(1)

where x ( z ) is the reflection phase for a normally incident

of
light with linear polarization along the principal axis x (z)

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incidence ( = 0), r returns to exp[i( z 2 )]

where the polarization-dependent phase 2
is the conventional geometric phase accumulated by the metasurface.[68] We note
that Equation (2) can be immediately useful
to design metasurfaces for phase control
with variable incidence angles. Interestingly,
there exists several special incidence planes
with constant r+ or r, as shown in Figure 1b.
The orthogonal lines in red color denote the
two incidence planes with either constant
0 or phase change for left-handed CP light
( = ( z )/2 or (2 z )/2). The similar
set of incident planes for right-handed CP
light are denoted in blue color ( = z /2 and
( + z )/2). These two sets of incident planes
have an angle of z in between them. Now,
suppose we choose the case z = /2. Then,
these two sets of special incident planes collapse to the same set where the reflection
phases for the two CPs are always lagging
Figure 1. Helicity-preserving omnidirectional plasmonic mirror. a) Schematic design: plas- with each other by /2. It means that transmonic structures (gold bars) with principal axes along the z- and x-directions on a gold mirror verse-electric (TE) incident light will be conwith dielectric spacer. The incident light is at a direction of polar angle on an incident plane verted completely into transverse-magnetic
indicated by the azimuthal angle . b) Special pairs of orthogonal incident planes with con(TM) light (and vice versa) at incident planes
stant co-CP reflection phases, 0 and , for varying . Red/blue color indicates the pair for left
handed (+), right-handed ( ) CP incidence. The angle between the two sets of orthogonal = /4 and = 3 /4. Figure 1c shows
planes is actually the reflection phase, z , at normal incidence with linear polarization along the cross-polarization reflection amplitude
( | rLP, cross | = | r + r | /2 , conversion between
the z-direction. c) cross-LP reflection coefficient as a function of the polar incident angle and
the normal reflection phase z at the incident plane of = /4.
TE and TM) as a function of incident angle
and z at the incidence plane = /4
(Figure 1c). Here, it is well known that such an AEB can
the plasmonic structures. Therefore, the notion of a boundary
have a total linear polarization conversion at normal incicondition extends the description of the metasurface at normal
dence.[1315,23,24] However, we find that it can stay flat at unity
incidence naturally to any incident angles and provides the
basis of wide-angle polarization control, for both CP and LP
against for the case of z = /2, showing a wide-angle crosslight, in this work.
LP polarization convertor. It is also worth to note that the AEBs
For preserving helicity in reflecting CP light into its co-polarwith reflection phase z = 0 or are widely known as soft-hard
ization at normal incidence, it requires x z = , a -phase
(SH) surfaces (mixing perfect electric conductor and perfect
difference between the two linear polarizations. By substituting
magnetic conductor boundaries in orthogonal directions).[3538]
this condition into Equation (1), it can be proved (with derivaHowever, such surfaces can only have perfect cross-LP convertion given in the Supporting Information) that the boundary
sion at normal incidence. It has been observed experimentally
condition can be decoupled for the two circular polarizations as
that the cross-LP conversion efficiency drops rapidly at oblique
angle incidence.[13] On the other hand, the SH surface approach
(E iH ) (u sin( z /2 ) v cos( z /2 )) = 0, with the upper
(lower) sign corresponding to the left-handed (right-handed)
has a subtle difficulty in designing optical/infrared compocircular polarization. v y defines the incidence plane and u is
nents, because SH surface is unavoidable to work very near to
the unit vector normal to it. The direction of the incident light
magnetic resonance which will have significant absorption (If
is defined by the polar angle and azimuthal angle , as indiwe want to make the SH interface thin enough so that it can
work for wide angles). Not like such lossy SH surface, AEB with
cated in Figure 1a. Such a decoupled boundary can be regarded
reflection phase z = x = /2 can be easily designed away
as a type of dual-symmetric boundary,[29] to ensure an incident
CP light is totally reflected to its co-polarization at any incident
from any absorption resonance at infrared optical frequencies.
angles. By applying the boundary condition at oblique inciIn the above example, a dual symmetric AEB with reflecdence (with details in the Supporting Information), the reflection phase z = x = /2 is analytically shown to work as a
tion coefficient can be further obtained as
helicity-preserving mirror with a wide range of incident angles
and incident planes. At the same time a complete cross-polarization conversion for LP light at particular incidence planes is

1 tan( z /2 )
r ( , ) = exp 2i tan
(2)

feasible. In order to prove the proposed concept, we experimen

cos
tally realize this particular AEB as a plasmonic dual-symmetric
mirror for both CP and LP wide-angle polarization control. A
Equation (2) can be regarded as a generalized geometric
scanning electron microscopy (SEM) image of the fabricated
phase formula for metasurfaces at oblique incidence. At normal
2

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metasurface is shown in Figure 2a. Here, we adopted a sandwich structure consisting of a periodic array of gold nano rods
on a gold back plane with a thin MgF2 spacer layer to ensure
nearly complete reflection and z = x = /2 (at a wavelength
around 1.5 m). We note that similar sandwich structures with
same reflection phases were first proposed to construct a circular polarization antenna in microwave regime.[23,24] Here,
our sample is designed for operation in NIR spectral domain
and we use a super continuum laser as light source while the
polarization and the angle of incidence on the sample can be
arbitrarily changed (for the experiment set up see Figure 2b).
Either CP or LP detection is performed for the reflected beam
and only specular reflection is measured as the periods of the
plasmonic nanoantennas are small enough to eliminate higherorder diffraction.
First, we measure the CP reflection amplitudes at an incident
angle near normal incidence ( = 15 and = 0 ) by using a
right-handed CP incident light. The co-CP (cross-CP) reflection
amplitudes are shown as open blue squares (open red circles) in
Figure 3a. The measured co-CP reflection peak and the associated cross-CP reflection dip is very close to our designed operational wavelength of 1.5 m, which equivalently corresponds to
a maximum helicity preserving efficiency (HPE) (95%, defined
as co-CP reflected power over total reflected power)[39] as shown
in Figure 3b. These results confirm our numerical simulations
(CST Microwave Studio, with structural parameters adjusted
from the SEM image of the actual sample), which are shown as
solid lines in Figure 3a,b.[40] Here, it is interesting to note that
the realization of such AEB in infrared regime is much more
difficult than in microwave regime. In this frequency regime,
we have to carefully design such metasurface with proper thickness to avoid too much loss from the metal (usually require a
thicker spacer) and still keep the validity of ultrathin criterion of
AEB. From the simulation results, we extract the corresponding
reflection phases when the incident light is at normal incidence (Figure 3c). The design criteria z = x = /2 is indeed
approximately satisfied around the designed wavelength at
1.5 m. The small mismatch between simulation and measurement might arise from imperfection in the nanofabrication and

Adv. Optical Mater. 2016,

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Figure 2. NIR metasurface sample and experimental setup. a) SEM image of the fabricated
sample (top-view), with geometry parameters: the thickness of the gold rod is 35 nm, each rod
as a dimension of 292 80 nm, the periodicity of the array is 360 nm in both directions, and
the MgF2 layer and the gold mirror layer is 93 and 150 nm in thicknesses. The whole sample
is fabricated on SiO2 substrate by standard nano fabrication techniques. b) Experiment set up.
Light from a super continuum laser with wavelength of 1.111.56 m was focused onto the
sample with a lens (L1 with focal length 10 cm). The polarization of laser can be changed to
circularly polarization through linear polarizer LP1 and quarter-wave plate QWP1, the polarization transmitted light can be analyzed by LP2 and QWP2.

the uncertainty in the permittivity of the gold

nanoantennas. As a result the operational
wavelength is shifted slightly to 1.45 m for
optimal CP control.
With the confirmed reflection phases and
high helicity preserving efficiency at near
normal incidence angle, in the next step we
experimentally demonstrate omni-directionality of the fabricated helicity-preserving
mirror. First, we fix the incident plane to
be = 45 where we vary the incident angle
from 15 to 60, which is the maximum
reflection angle imposed by our setup. The
measured helicity preserving efficiency and
the LP cross-polarization conversion efficiency, defined as cross-LP reflected power
over total reflected power,[38] are respectively
shown in Figure 4a,b together with the simulated results. For both CP and LP cases,
the conversion efficiencies are nearly independent of the incident angle and remain

Figure 3. Calibration of the helicity-preserving plasmonic mirror. a,b) The

measured (open symbols) and simulated (curves) results of a) co-CP/
cross-CP reflection coefficients (red/blue) and b) helicity preserving efficiency (black) versus frequency at incident angle with = 15, = 0.
The dashed line denotes the working wavelength at 1.45 m. c) The simulated reflection phase x and z with x- and z-polarized incident light.

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with elliptically polarization experimentally in the Supporting

Information.
In conclusion, we have experimentally demonstrated an
ultra-thin plasmonic metasurface to achieve all-angle polarization control, enabled by the approach of an artificial electromagnetic boundary. The metasurface, approximating a helicitypreserving mirror, has both high helicity preserving efficiency
and cross-LP conversion efficiency with over 91% for incidence
angles up to 60 at incidence planes with constant phase for
both CPs. Furthermore, the helicity preservation works for any
incident planes. The helicity-preserving mirror fills a missing
gap in available optical components. Helicity preserving surfaces will be useful for wide-angle polarization control and for
the design of metasurfaces with tunable excitations.

Supporting Information
Supporting Information is available from the Wiley Online Library or
from the author.

Acknowledgements
S.X., H.M., and G.L. contributed equally to this work. J.L. acknowledges
support from the European Unions Seventh Framework Programme
under Grant Agreement No. 630979. S.Z. acknowledges support
from EPSRC (EP/J018473/1) and Leverhulme (RPG-2012-674). T.Z.
acknowledges the continuous support by Cedrik Meier for providing
his electron beam lithography system for sample fabrication and the
financial support by the DFG Research Training Group GRK1464.
Received: November 27, 2015
Published online:
Figure 4. Measured wide-angle polarization control for both CP and LP
incidence. a,b) Measured (solid dots) and simulated (curves) helicity preserving efficiency and LP cross-polarization conversion efficiency spectra
versus incident angle at fixed azimuthal angle = 45. c) Measured
(solid dots) and simulated (surface) helicity preserving efficiency as a
spherical plot versus both incident polar angle ( ) and azimuthal angle ( ).
The HPE is denoted by both radius from origin and color of the surface.

larger than 91% even when the angle of incidence reaches 60.
The small drop from the ideal 100% conversion efficiency is
attributed to the absorption loss of metal at infrared frequencies.
Finally, the reflection amplitudes for the full range of incident
angles (varying both and ) are carried out. The experimental results of the co-CP conversion efficiency are shown
as a spherical plot (efficiency as radius plotted as a function of
and ) in Figure 4c with black dots. The measurements confirm our simulation results (the colored surface) in approaching
an upper spherical hemisphere of unit efficiency, indicating
that the fabricated metasurface has a high co-CP reflection efficiency at a wide range of incident angles. Here, if the incident
light is of general elliptical polarization, our mirror preserves
the ellipticity of the incident wave, as a direct implication of
the helicity-preservation property. On the other hand, the orientation angle (of the polarization ellipse) is increased by an
amount of arg(r + /r )/2, which is generally dependent on both
and . We have shown how to characterize the reflected light
4

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