Dyakonov surface polaritons in bi-hyperbolic metamaterial

Abstract

A periodically layered metamaterial (MM) structured with antiferromagnetic (AF) and ionic-crystal (IC) layers was proposed, which exhibits bi-hyperbolicity with effective hyperbolic permeability and permittivity. We investigated Dyakonov surface polaritons (DSPs) localized at this bi-hyperbolic metamaterial surface. For such a complicated material system, we analytically acquired one concise dispersion equation and corresponding wave solutions. From them, we found four DSPs, or DSP-I, DSP-II, DSP-III, and DSP-IV, and meanwhile one Dyakonov surface magnon and one Dyakonov surface phonon were found in this bi-hyperbolic metamaterial. The ATR spectra numerically calculated clearly proved the actual existence of the DSPs acquired from the dispersion equation and offered the path to excite and observe the DSPs. The DSP’s energy propagating direction is parallel to the air/MM interface, but not along the wave vector direction, and further it can approximatively be vertical to the wave-vector.