Optical modes in slab waveguides with magnetoelectric effect

Abstract: Optical modes in anisotropic slab waveguides with topological and chiral magnetoelectric effects are investigated analytically, by deriving the closed-form characteristic equations of the modes and hence computing the dispersion-diagrams. In order to compute the characteristic equations, a vector-potential approach is introduced by incorporating a generalized Lorentz gauge, and the corresponding Helmholtz equations are derived correspondingly. It will be shown that the formation of the complex modes and hybridization of the optical modes in such slab waveguides is inevitable. Moreover, when the tensorial form of the permittivity in the waveguide allows for a hyperbolic dispersion, complex transition from the photonic kinds of modes to the plasmonic modes is expected.