biostudies-literatureCheng YResearch Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, ChinaMOST | National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC)MOST | National Natural Science Foundation of Chinae2301620120https://www.ebi.ac.uk/biostudies/studies/S-EPMC10288596biostudies-literatureUnknown120(25)Directional radiation and scattering play an essential role in light manipulation for various applications in integrated nanophotonics, antenna and metasurface designs, quantum optics, etc. The most elemental system with this property is the class of directional dipoles, including the circular dipole, Huygens dipole, and Janus dipole. A unified realization of all three dipole types and a mechanism to freely switch among them are previously unreported, yet highly desirable for developing compact and multifunctional directional sources. Here, we theoretically and experimentally demonstrate that the synergy of chirality and anisotropy can give rise to all three directional dipoles in one structure at the same frequency under linearly polarized plane wave excitations. This mechanism enables a simple helix particle to serve as a directional dipole dice (DDD), achieving selective manipulation of optical directionality via different "faces" of the particle. We employ three "faces" of the DDD to realize face-multiplexed routing of guided waves in three orthogonal directions with the directionality determined by spin, power flow, and reactive power, respectively. This construction of the complete directionality space can enable high-dimensional control of both near-field and far-field directionality with broad applications in photonic integrated circuits, quantum information processing, and subwavelength-resolution imaging.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of AmericaDirectional dipole dice enabled by anisotropic chirality.PMC10288596CityU 11301820C6013-18G11904306AoE/P-502/20Xue BWang SWong AMHLei DCheng YOyesina KAfalseDirectional dipole dice enabled by anisotropic chirality.Directional radiation and scattering play an essential role in light manipulation for various applications in integrated nanophotonics, antenna and metasurface designs, quantum optics, etc. The most elemental system with this property is the class of directional dipoles, including the circular dipole, Huygens dipole, and Janus dipole. A unified realization of all three dipole types and a mechanism to freely switch among them are previously unreported, yet highly desirable for developing compact and multifunctional directional sources. Here, we theoretically and experimentally demonstrate that the synergy of chirality and anisotropy can give rise to all three directional dipoles in one structure at the same frequency under linearly polarized plane wave excitations. This mechanism enables a simple helix particle to serve as a directional dipole dice (DDD), achieving selective manipulation of optical directionality via different "faces" of the particle. We employ three "faces" of the DDD to realize face-multiplexed routing of guided waves in three orthogonal directions with the directionality determined by spin, power flow, and reactive power, respectively. This construction of the complete directionality space can enable high-dimensional control of both near-field and far-field directionality with broad applications in photonic integrated circuits, quantum information processing, and subwavelength-resolution imaging.2023-01-01T00:00:00Z2023 Jun2025-07-01T03:05:18.154Z2025-04-04T12:11:10.044ZS-EPMC102885963730747510.1073/pnas.2301620120