Breaking Lorentz reciprocity

UltraChiral EPFL partners K. L. Tsakmakidis and H. Altug, in collaboration with other groups, have shown in the recent publication by K. L. Tsakmakidis et al. in Science magazine, that the time/bandwidth limit (Δω Δt ~ 2π) might not be as fundamental as physicists and engineers are accustomed to believe. By – appropriately  – breaking Lorentz reciprocity in a system, i.e. by making it more and more asymmetric in its transport properties, the system can potentially greatly overcome this limitation. Could this lead to the design of high quality factor systems, operating over disproportionately large bandwidths?

This work was partially funded by ULTRACHIRAL.