Optical metamaterials are building blocks for the control of light behaviors and designs of photonic devices, where the inner interfaces in deep-subwavelength features are expected to have little impact on light transport, based on the concept of homogenization. Here we theoretically and experimentally study a new type of photonic interface (namely a hyperinterface) inside an optical metamaterial made of a zigzag alternating multilayer structure [namely structured metamaterials (SMMs)] in the deep-subwavelength regime. It is found that the subwavelength hyperinterfaces play a great role in the optical properties of such SMMs, and the electromagnetic properties of the hyperinterfaces can be effectively manipulated in a feasible way. In particular, the absorption of the SMMs strongly depends not only on the intrinsic absorption of the SMMs’ unit cells, but also on the structural absorption that is induced by the hyperinterfaces inside the SMMs and their period $p$, even for the long wavelength limitation. These outcomes are attributed to the dispersion relations of the hyperinterfaces, that is, the interplay of the angle formed by the asymptotes of the iso-frequency contour (hyperbola) of the SMMs’ unit cells and the geometric rotating angle of zigzag structures. Such interplay leads to an effect of clipping and the recombination of energy flow distributions at the hyperinterfaces. Our findings may pave the way to the manipulation of a light field to enhance the conversion efficiency of optoelectronic devices, e.g., solar cells and photodetectors.

中文翻译：

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用于光操纵的光子超界面

光学超材料是控制光行为和光子器件设计的基础，基于均化的概念，深亚波长特征中的内部界面对光传输的影响很小。在这里，我们在理论上和实验上研究了一种在深亚波长范围内由之字形交替多层结构[即结构化超材料（SMM）]构成的光学超材料内部新型的光子界面（即超界面）。发现亚波长超界面在此类SMM的光学特性中起着重要作用，并且可以以可行的方式有效地操纵超界面的电磁特性。尤其是，$ p $，即使对于长波长限制也是如此。这些结果归因于超界面的色散关系，也就是说，由SMM的等频率轮廓（双曲线）的渐近线形成的角度与之字形结构的几何旋转角度之间存在相互作用。这种相互作用导致超界面处的削波效应和能量流分布的重组。我们的发现可能为光场的操纵铺平了道路，以提高光电器件（例如太阳能电池和光电探测器）的转换效率。