Chirality, Magnetism and Magnetoelectricity

Book excerpt: This book discusses theoretical and experimental advances in metamaterial structures, which are of fundamental importance to many applications in microwave and optical-wave physics and materials science. Metamaterial structures exhibit time-reversal and space-inversion symmetry breaking due to the effects of magnetism and chirality. The book addresses the characteristic properties of various symmetry breaking processes by studying field-matter interaction with use of conventional electromagnetic waves and novel types of engineered fields: twisted-photon fields, toroidal fields, and magnetoelectric fields. In a system with a combined effect of simultaneous breaking of space and time inversion symmetries, one observes the magnetochiral effect. Another similar phenomenon featuring space-time inversion symmetries is related to use of magnetoelectric materials. Cross-coupling of the electric and magnetic components in these material structures, leading to the appearance of new magnetic modes with an electric excitation channel – electromagnons and skyrmions – has resulted in a wealth of strong optical effects such as directional dichroism, magnetochiral dichroism, and rotatory power of the fields. This book contains multifaceted contributions from international leading experts and covers the essential aspects of symmetry-breaking effects, including theory, modeling and design, proven and potential applications in practical devices, fabrication, characterization and measurement. It is ideally suited as an introduction and basic reference work for researchers and graduate students entering this field.