Observation of photonic Peierls transition for manipulating electromagnetic waves in metallic periodic structures

Abstract

Abstract Peierls transition that modifies electronic band structure has attracted intensive attention in solid state physics. In the present work, a photonic analog of Peierls transition has been observed in a 1-D triangular metal diaphragm array, where the photonic bandgap structures have been designed at will by adjusting periodically the metal diaphragm positions. It is shown by the numerical analysis that the transmission and radiation effect of the present periodic metal structure designed through the Peierls transition rule exhibits the behavior significantly different from the original periodic structure with each unit cell containing a metal diaphragm. The near- and far-field measurement results are in good agreement with our theoretical simulation. The present effect of photonic Peierls transition can serve as a working mechanism for designing new types of guided wave devices. It can be seen that the photonic Peierls transition would be one of the simplest ways for modifying the transport characteristics of periodic structures.