Skin effect enhancement through symmetry breaking in reciprocal photonic crystals

Enhancing the skin effect in non-Hermitian photonic crystals has traditionally required alternating materials with different gain and loss characteristics inside the basic unit, which not only increases fabrication complexity but also faces limitations due to different material compatibility and material integrations. In this paper, a novel method is proposed that requires only one material but enables significant enhancement of the skin effect intensity by introducing spatial rotational symmetry breaking in two-dimensional reciprocal photonic crystals. Our result has shown a 306.09% improvement in skin effect intensity with just one material, if compared to previous designs. Our finding not only may broaden the theoretical framework of non-Hermitian optics but also demonstrates significant potential for practical applications in photonic integration, optical sensing, and laser design, thus opening up new possibilities for future photonic device innovations. © 2024 Optica Publishing Group. All rights, including for text and data mining (TDM), Artificial Intelligence (AI) training, and similar technologies, are reserved.