A chirality-based approach to making a one-way waveguide that can be used asan optical isolator or a polarizer is described. The waveguide is rectangular,and chirality is introduced by making slanted rectangular grooves on thewaveguide walls. Chirality of the waveguide manifests as a strong circulardichroism, and is responsible for transmitting one circular polarization oflight and reflecting the other. Optical isolation of the propagating circularpolarization is accomplished when the chiral waveguide is placed in front of anon-chiral optical device. Even the crudest implementations of chirality areshown to exhibit significant circular dichroism.
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