Switchable Plasmonic Chirality for Light Modulation: From Near-Field to Far-Field Coupling

This paper describes a quasi-planar chiral metamaterial of metal-insulator- metal (MIM) tetramer arrays that support multiplasmon modes from a hybridization scheme to achieve significant chiroptical responses with the largest circular dichroism (CD) value of 42%. The chiroptical responses can be actively switched on and off by tuning the field coupling regime from near field to far field through the insulator (or spacer) thickness. Numerical calculations demonstrate that near-field coupling of the hybridized plasmons on the stacked metallic tetramers governs the chiroptical responses at small insulator thickness (t(SiO2) < 160 nm). In contrast, far-field coupling of the plasmon radiations dominates at large spacing (t(SiO2) > 160 nm) as phase retardation plays a crucial role. The quasi-planar chiral metamaterial with tunable plasmonic chirality enables efficient light modulation for polarization conversion: from circular to elliptical/linear polarization.