arXiv subjects

Yuqiong Cheng

Publications and source records attributed to Yuqiong Cheng.

10 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Janus Dipoles: Fundamentals, Realizations, and Emerging Applications

The Janus dipole - featuring orthogonally oriented electric and magnetic dipoles with a 90-degree phase difference - has emerged as a powerful paradigm for wave manipulation. Unlike traditional Huygens dipoles used for directional control, this unique configuration exhibits strongly asymmetric, face-selective near-field behavior while maintaining a quasi-isotropic far-field radiation pattern. These remarkable properties make the Janus dipole an essential platform for directional wave shaping, with wide-ranging applications in on-chip photonics, quantum interactions, and wireless power transfer. This review systematically traces the rapid development of the Janus dipole from its foundational theoretical inception to its diverse implementation platforms across optical, microwave, and acoustic frequencies. In this paper, we explore the governing principles, classify realization strategies into passive Janus dipoles, active Janus dipoles, and advanced near-field coupling control, and highlight emerging frontiers. By bridging foundational electrodynamics with advanced device engineering, this paper serves as an essential reference and roadmap for researchers designing next-generation, highly integrated, and compact wave-manipulation systems.

physics.app-ph↗

arXiv2025

Acoustic helical dichroism enhanced by chiral quasi-bound states in the continuum

Acoustic helical dichroism (HD) arises from the interaction between vortex beams carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM) and chiral media, yet such chiral sound-matter interactions are typically weak. Here, we employ quasi-bound states in the continuum (QBICs) in acoustic meta-cavities composed of coupled Helmholtz resonators to enhance acoustic HD. We design both achiral and chiral meta-cavities that support QBICs in the form of vortex states with high Q-factors. Using full-wave numerical simulations, we show that the QBICs in the achiral meta-cavities cannot enhance acoustic HD due to the absence of a chiral wavefront. In contrast, the chiral meta-cavity exhibits a pronounced HD enhancement through the QBICs with a 3D helical wavefront, which can be excited by incident waves either with or without OAM. Our work identifies two essential requirements for enhancing acoustic HD effect via QBICs: a high Q-factor of the states and 3D chirality of the state fields, which usually compromise each other in conventional acoustic resonators. The findings open new avenues for achieving strong chiral sound-matter interactions, with potential applications in acoustic chiral sensing and acoustic OAM manipulation.

physics.app-ph↗

arXiv2025

Riemann-Silberstein geometric phase in 4D polarization space

Geometric phase is a far-reaching concept in quantum and classical physics. The first discovered geometric phase, the Pancharatnam-Berry (PB) phase, has profoundly shaped nanophotonics through metasurfaces. However, the PB phase arises from SU(2) polarization evolution and is constrained to a 2D polarization space, failing to capture the full polarization degrees of freedom. We generalize geometric phase to the 4D Riemann-Silberstein (RS) space that simultaneously describes electric, magnetic, and hybrid electric-magnetic polarizations. We show that SU(4) polarization evolution can generate a new geometric phase, the RS phase, alongside the PB phase. Unlike the PB phase that typically manifests in circularly polarized light, the RS phase can emerge in arbitrarily polarized light. Together, they enable a high-dimensional geometric framework for light propagation across general interfaces. We reveal that the phase shifts governed by Fresnel equations are direct manifestations of the RS-space geometric phases, integrating a century-old wave theory into this paradigm. We experimentally validate the framework using metasurfaces and achieve high-dimensional wavefront manipulation. Our work offers fundamental insights into the geometric nature of light-matter interactions, with implications for topological and non-Abelian physics in classical wave systems.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2024

Directional sources realised by toroidal dipoles

Directional optical sources can give rise to the directional excitation and propagation of light. The directionality of the conventional directional dipole (CDD) sources are attributed to the interference of the electric and/or magnetic dipoles, while the effect of the toroidal dipole on optical directionality remains unexplored.} Here, we numerically and analytically investigate the directional properties of the toroidal dipole. We show that the toroidal dipole can replace the electric dipole in the CDD sources to form the pseudo directional dipoles (PDDs), which can be applied to achieve analogous near-field directional coupling with a silicon waveguide. Moreover, the directionality of the PDDs can be flexibly controlled by changing the geometric parameters of the toroidal dipole, leading to tunable asymmetric coupling between the sources and the waveguide. These new types of directional sources provide more degrees of freedom for tailoring the optical directionality compared to the conventional sources. The results open new possibilities for directional light manipulation and can find applications in on-chip optical routing, waveguiding, and nanophotonic communications.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2023

Multiplexing spectral line shape of waveguide transmission by photonic spin-orbit interaction

Manipulating the spectral line shape exhibits great potential in realizing active optical circuits with switching, sensing, and modulation capabilities. Exploring unusual line shapes, such as Fano resonance and electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT), has attracted substantial interest. Conventional methods of engineering the spectral line shape have limited tunability and face challenges in multiplexing different spectral line shapes. Here, we propose and numerically demonstrate a new mechanism to tailor the transmission line shape almost at will by exploiting the interference of frequency-dependent chiral dipolar states in two helix particles sitting above a dielectric waveguide. We show that, by tuning the polarization of the chiral dipoles and exploiting transverse spin-orbit interaction, one can control the asymmetric Pancharatnam-Berry geometric phase for the excited guided waves propagating in opposite directions. The interference of the guided waves respectively excited by the two particles can give rise to transmissions with various line shapes, including Lorentzian-like, antiresonance-like, Fano-like, and EIT-like line shapes, which carry an intriguing property of line shape-momentum locking, i.e., the transmissions in opposite directions have different line shapes. Our findings open new possibilities for multiplexed and multifunctional nanophotonic designs with unprecedented capability of spectral-line shaping. The proposed structures can be conveniently integrated with optical circuits for on-chip applications.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2023

Directional Dipole Dice Enabled by Anisotropic Chirality

Directional radiation and scattering play an essential role in light manipulation for various applications in integrated nanophotonics, antenna and metasurface designs, quantum optics, etc. The most elemental system with this property is the class of directional dipoles, including the circular dipole, Huygens dipole, and Janus dipole. A unified realization of all three dipole types and a mechanism to freely switch among them are previously unreported, yet highly desirable for developing compact and multifunctional directional sources. Here, we theoretically and experimentally demonstrate that the synergy of chirality and anisotropy can give rise to all three directional dipoles in one structure at the same frequency under linearly polarized plane wave excitations. This mechanism enables a simple helix particle to serve as a directional dipole dice (DDD), achieving selective manipulation of optical directionality via different "faces" of the particle. We employ three "faces" of the DDD to realize face-multiplexed routing of guided waves in three orthogonal directions with the directionality determined by spin, power flow, and reactive power, respectively. This construction of the complete directionality space can enable the unprecedented high-dimensional control of both near-field and far-field directionality with broad applications in photonic integrated circuits, quantum information processing, and subwavelength-resolution imaging.

physics.class-ph↗

arXiv2022

Nonreciprocal light propagation induced by a subwavelength spinning cylinder

Nonreciprocal optical devices have broad applications in light manipulations for communications and sensing. Non-magnetic mechanisms of optical nonreciprocity are highly desired for high-frequency on-chip applications. Here, we investigate the nonreciprocal properties of light propagation in a dielectric waveguide induced by a subwavelength spinning cylinder. We find that the chiral modes of the cylinder can give rise to unidirectional coupling with the waveguide via the transverse spin-orbit interaction, leading to different transmissions for guided wave propagating in opposite directions and thus optical isolation. We reveal the dependence of the nonreciprocal properties on various system parameters including mode order, spinning speed, and coupling distance. The results show that higher-order chiral modes and larger spinning speed generally give rise to stronger nonreciprocity, and there exists an optimal cylinder-waveguide coupling distance where the optical isolation reaches the maximum. Our work contributes to the understanding of nonreciprocity in subwavelength moving structures and can find applications in integrated photonic circuits, topological photonics, and novel metasurfaces.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2022

Chiral discrimination by polarization singularities of a metal sphere

The practical applications of chiral discrimination are usually limited by the weak chiral response of enantiomers and the high complexity of detection methods. Here, we propose to use the C lines (i.e., lines of polarization singularities) emerged in light scattering by a metal sphere to detect small chiral particles. Using full-wave numerical simulations and analytical multipole expansions, we determined the absorption dissymmetry of deep-subwavelength helices (i.e., chiral particles) at different positions on the C lines. We find that the absorption dissymmetry can be much larger than that induced by circularly polarized plane wave excitation, and it can be attributed to the asymmetric absorption of the induced electric and magnetic dipoles. We also show that the absorption dissymmetry strongly depends on the anisotropy of the helices. The results may find applications in optical manipulations, optical sensing, and chiral quantum optics.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2021

Robust exceptional point of arbitrary order in coupled spinning cylinders

Exceptional points (EPs), i.e., non-Hermitian degeneracies at which eigenvalues and eigenvectors coalesce, can be realized by tuning the gain/loss contrast of different modes in non-Hermitian systems or by engineering the asymmetric coupling of modes. Here we demonstrate a mechanism that can achieve EPs of arbitrary order by employing the non-reciprocal coupling of spinning cylinders sitting on a dielectric waveguide. The spinning motion breaks the time-reversal symmetry and removes the degeneracy of opposite chiral modes of the cylinders. Under the excitation of a linearly polarized plane wave, the chiral mode of one cylinder can unidirectionally couple to the same mode of the other cylinder via the spin-orbit interaction associated with the evanescent wave of the waveguide. The structure can give rise to arbitrary-order EPs that are robust against spin-flipping perturbations, in contrast to conventional systems relying on spin-selective excitations. In addition, we show that higher-order EPs in the proposed system are accompanied by enhanced optical isolation, which may find applications in designing novel optical isolators, nonreciprocal optical devices, and topological photonics.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2021

Optical isolation induced by subwavelength spinning particle via spin-orbit interaction

Optical isolation enables nonreciprocal manipulations of light with broad applications in optical communications. Optical isolation by rotating structures has drawn considerable attention due to its magnetic-free nature and unprecedented performance. Conventional rotation-based optical isolation relies on the use of bulky cavities hindering applications in subwavelength photonics. Here, we propose a novel mechanism of optical isolation by integrating the unique dispersion of a hyperbolic metamaterial with the transverse spin-orbit interaction of evanescent waves. We show that rotation of a subwavelength hyperbolic nanoparticle breaks the time-reversal symmetry and yields two resonant chiral modes that selectively couple to the transverse spin of waveguide modes. Remarkably, the transverse spin-orbit interaction can give rise to unidirectional coupling and $>95\%$ isolation of infrared light at an experimentally feasible rotation speed. Our work fuses the two important fields of optical isolation and photonic spin-orbit interactions, leading to magnetic-free yet compact nonreciprocal devices for novel applications in optical communications, chiral quantum optics, and topological photonics.

physics.optics↗