Chiral surface waves on hyperbolic-gyromagnetic metamaterials

The existence of surface waves at the boundary of a hyperbolic-gyromagnetic metamaterial is studied. The surface waves, which are analytically formulated in terms of the eigenfields, appear in the spatial gap between two elliptically polarized bulk modes of the metamaterial. The surface waves are chiral in the sense that they propagate unidirectionally along the edge and reverse the propagation direction upon changing sign of the gyrotropic parameter. The topological feature of the chiral surface waves can be characterized by the Berry phases of the bulk modes, showing the bulk-edge correspondence for the underlying medium. The unidirectionality of the chiral surface waves and their immunity to disorder are further demonstrated by the propagation of electromagnetic waves around sharp corners. (C) 2017 Optical Society of America.