Microwave-regime demonstration of plasmonic non-reciprocity in a flowing two-dimensional electron gas

Abstract

The speed of a plasmonic wave in the presence of electron drift in a conductor depends on the wave's propagation direction, with the wave traveling along the drift (`forward wave') faster than the wave traveling against the drift (`backward wave'). Phenomena related to this plasmonic non-reciprocity -- which is relatively more pronounced in two-dimensional conductors than in bulk conductors and could lead to solid-state device applications -- have been studied in THz and optical spectral regimes. Here we demonstrate the plasmonic non-reciprocity at microwave frequencies (10 $\sim$ 50 GHz). Concretely, we conduct, at 4K, a microwave network analysis on a gated GaAs two-dimensional electron gas with electron drift (i.e., DC current), directly measuring out forward and backward wave speeds via their propagation phase delays. We resolve, for example, forward and backward wave speeds of $4.26 \times 10^{-3} \pm 8.97 \times 10^{-6}$ (normalized to the speed of light). Sufficient consistency between the electron drift speed obtained from the microwave measurement and that alternatively estimated by a DC transport theory further confirms the non-reciprocity. We conclude this paper with a discussion on how to enhance the non-reciprocity for real-world applications, where degeneracy pressure would play an important role.