Physicists “trick” photons into behaving like electrons using a “synthetic” magnetic field

Straining a honeycomb metasurface generates an artificial magnetic field for light which can be tuned by embedding the metasurface inside a cavity waveguide.

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Tau.Neutrino said:

Physicists “trick” photons into behaving like electrons using a “synthetic” magnetic field

Straining a honeycomb metasurface generates an artificial magnetic field for light which can be tuned by embedding the metasurface inside a cavity waveguide.

more…

> because photons do not carry an electric charge, they cannot be straightforwardly controlled using real magnetic fields since they do not experience a Lorentz force.

Well, obviously.

> The research team have shown that it is possible to create artificial magnetic fields for light by distorting honeycomb metasurfaces — ultra-thin 2D surfaces that are engineered to have structure on a scale much smaller than the wavelength of light. These metasurfaces, support hybrid light-matter excitations, called polaritons, which are trapped on the metasurface.They are then deflected in a similar way to how magnetic fields deflect charged particles.

Wow.