Circularly polarized thermal radiation from layer-by-layer photonic crystal structures

The authors studied the thermal radiation properties of a chiral layer-by-layer photonic crystal structure. They found that thermal emissions have a predominantly circular polarization in some frequency ranges and the mechanism underlying this circularly polarized thermal emission is traced to polarization gaps inherent in the layer-by-layer photonic crystal or to surface plasmons if the photonic crystal is supported by a metal substrate.