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Scintillation describes the conversion of high-energy particles into light in transparent media and finds diverse applications such as high-energy particle detection and industrial and medical imaging. This process operates on multiple timescales, with the final radiative step consisting of spontaneous emission, which can be modeled within the framework of quasiequilibrium fluctuational electrodynamics. Scintillation can therefore be controlled and enhanced via nanophotonic effects, which has been proposed and experimentally demonstrated. Such designs have thus far obeyed Lorentz reciprocity, meaning there is a direct equivalence between scintillation emission and absorption by the scintillator. However, scintillators that do not obey Lorentz reciprocity have not been explored, even though they represent an alternative platform for probing emission, which is both nonequilibrium and nonreciprocal in nature. In this work, we propose to harness nonreciprocity to achieve directional control of scintillation emission, granting an additional degree of control over scintillation. Such directionality of light output is useful in improving collection efficiencies along the directions where detectors are located. We present the design of a nonreciprocal scintillator using a one-dimensional magnetophotonic crystal in the Voigt configuration. Our work demonstrates the potential of controlling nonequilibrium such as scintillation by breaking reciprocity and expands the space of nanophotonic design for achieving such control.

In photonics, band degeneracies at high-symmetry points in wavevector space have been shown to exhibit rich physical phenomena. However, obtaining degenerate bands away from such points is highly nontrivial. In this work, we achieve complex band degeneracy in a photonic crystal structure over a region of momentum space. We show that this band degeneracy corresponds to polarization-independent transmission, which can be harnessed for nonlocal metasurface design. Moreover, we find that the band degeneracy manifests as a topological singularity in the structural parameter space of the system. Our work highlights the importance of topological concepts in the design of polarization-independent photonic structures.

The duality of space and time in Maxwell's equations has prompted interest in time boundaries and the accompanying temporal analog of spatial reflection and refraction. However, achieving observable time-boundary effects at optical frequencies in real materials is challenging. In this Letter, we demonstrate that time reflection and refraction can be observed in a two-band model centered around a nonzero reference energy. Our model can be physically implemented in the synthetic frequency dimension as a system of two coupled dynamically modulated ring resonators. We find that modulation at microwave frequencies is sufficient to observe time-boundary effects for optical waves in synthetic frequency dimension. Our Letter shows that implementing multiband models in synthetic dimensions opens a new avenue for further exploration of time boundaries.

Flat optics has demonstrated great advances in miniaturizing conventional bulky optical elements due to recent developments in metasurface design. Specific applications of such designs include spatial differentiation and the compression of free-space. However, metasurfaces designed for such applications are often polarization-dependent and are designed for a single functionality. In this work, we introduce a polarization-independent metasurface structure by designing guided resonances with degenerate band curvatures in a photonic crystal slab. Our device can perform both free-space compression and spatial differentiation when operated at different frequencies at normal incidence. This work demonstrates the promise of dispersion engineering in metasurface design to create ultrathin devices with polarization-independent functionality.