Robust wave transport at subwavelength scale with chiral metamaterials

Abstract

Rapid progress in all types of communication systems imposes each time more strict requirements on the communication devices, requiring having the overall device's size as small as possible, but also increasing the demands on the robustness of the transmission channels to the disorders with an aim of achieving most efficient signal transmission. The existing schemes for transferring signals, based on the conventional materials, are tied to the operation wavelength of the propagating signal and therefore fundamentally limited by it. Moreover, in such schemes the absence of any sort of protection renders them vulnerable to possible defects in the channel, forcing the use of additional elements (for instance filters, amplifiers, etc.) and increasing the overall size and cost of the devices. However, recent developments in the field of artificial media, known as metamaterials [1], showed a great potential for achieving more control over the wave propagation and providing viable solutions for an efficient signal transmission. Unfortunately, since these artificial media consist of resonant inclusions - meta-atoms, they are inherently susceptible to geometrical imperfections and disorder-induced backscattering, which significantly reduces their performance and limits their real applications.