Conformal transformations to achieve unidirectional behavior of light

The method of optical conformal mapping is used to design two isotropic devices through which light travels in a unidirectional manner. The first device is a directional emitter. By setting a line current source in a properly tuned refractive index profile, fields can be radiated in only one direction or its opposite without using any reflector or metallic structure. The second proposal is a dual-functional device. It works not only as a directional emitter for an embedded source but also as a quasi-diode for beams, thus having potential on-chip applications. Functionalities of the two designs are verified by finite- element-based simulations. We further investigate the spatial dependence of the refractive index near singularities, and corresponding optimization is proposed in the interests of experimental consideration. Numerical results show that the one-way property is well preserved after the parameter reduction.

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