Unidirectional weak visibility in band gap and singular scattering in conduction band of one-dimensional parity-time symmetric photonic crystal

Abstract: We explore the absorption and scattering properties of one dimensional parity-time ($\mathcal{PT}$)-symmetric photonic crystal. In addition to the familiar transmittance and reflectance, we give the definition of the generalized absorptance to include the amplifying effect of the dielectric with negative imaginary part of the permittivity, moreover, we present the mathematical expressions of the transmittance, reflectances and absorptances from both sides of this photonic crystal with N periods in terms of the elements of the transfer matrix of the primitive cell. The complex band structure of this photonic crystal is studied and the corresponding evolutions of the exceptional points, $\mathcal{PT}$-exact phase and $\mathcal{PT}$-broken phase are disclosed. Near the exceptional points, we find some singular behaviors, the transmittance and reflectances from both sides are all greater than one and even all reach large values at the same time, then the corresponding absorptances from both sides are negative. In the band gap, the transmittance is zero, the reflectance form one side can be very large, while the reflectance from the other side is very small, we call this phenomenon unidirectional weak visibility. We believe that these phenomena are very beneficial for the design of the optical devices.