We analyzed polarization characteristics of gammadion-shaped planar chiral nano-gratings (PCNGs), using Jones matrix and FDTD simulation. Optical activity (OA) was found to take place at wavelengths where long-lifetime modes appeared in the chiral layer. Among two kinds of resonance phenomena that concern the extension of the lifetime, guided-mode resonance and Fabry-Perot resonance, the latter was found to be a key to generate practically-important, broad peaks in the OA spectrum. Through the calculation of dispersion relations of Bloch modes in the chiral layer, we showed that the interference of multiple modes with group velocity dispersion played a critical role in the generation of such long-lifetime modes.

A rigorous and simple method is proposed for analyzing guided modes of metallic electromagnetic crystal waveguides. The method is a combination of generalized reflection and transmission matrices and the mode-matching technique. Fast convergence, low computer cost, and high calculating precision are main advantages of the proposed method. This method can easily avoid the relative convergence phenomena than a classical mode-matching method, and the proposed formulation is very suitable to analyzing multilayered problems with very low computer cost. The existence of H-polarized modes in metallic electromagnetic crystal waveguides has been verified.

We predict that chemical waves can propagate as a guided mode in a reaction-diffusion system that consists of two regions with different wave speeds. In comparison with electromagnetic waveguides, unique features of the guided chemical waves can be seen in their dispersion characteristics. Conditions for supporting lowest-loss guided waves are discussed.