Chiral nonlinear polaritonics with van der Waals metasurfaces
Abstract
Chiral optical cavities are crucial for the development of nonequilibrium quantum materials by discriminating and selectively coupling to light of a specific circular polarization, but fundamentally cannot be realized with conventional mirror cavities. Here, we demonstrate this unique functionality by developing a monolithic transition metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) metasurface with broken out-of-plane symmetry, allowing for the selective formation of self-hybridized chiral exciton-polaritons. Our metasurface maintains maximal chirality for oblique incidence up to 20°, thereby outperforming all previously known designs. Moreover, we study the chiral strong-coupling regime in nonlinear experiments and reveal polaritonic signatures in chiral third-harmonic generation. Our results position maximally chiral van der Waals (vdW) metasurfaces as a versatile platform for tunable chiral polaritonics with applications in nonreciprocal photonic devices and valleytronics.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Strong Light-Matter Interactions
Mechanical and Optical Resonators
Plasmonic and Surface Plasmon Research
Publication details
- Journal / source
- Science Advances
- Publisher
- American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
- Volume
- 12
- Issue
- 13
- Pages
- eaeb5631–eaeb5631
- Publication date
- 27 March 2026
- Language
- EN