Experimental Realization of Near-Field Photonic Routing with All-Electric Metasources

The spatially confined evanescent microwave photonics have been proved to be highly desirable in broad practical scenarios ranging from robust information communications to efficient quantum interactions. However, the feasible applications of these photonics modes are limited due to the lack of fundamental understandings and feasible directional coupling approaches at sub-wavelengths. Here, we experimentally demonstrate the efficient near-field photonic routing achieved in waveguides composed of two kinds of single-negative metamaterials. Without mimicking the polarization features, we propose all-electric near-field metasource in subwavelength scale and exemplify its near-field functions like Janus, Huygens and spin sources, corresponding to time-reversal, parity-time and parity symmetries of its inner degree of freedom. Our work furthers the understandings about optical near-field symmetry and feasible engineering approaches of directional couplings, which would pave the way for promising integrated mircrowave photonics devices.