Shielding effect of hollow chiral sphere

The low-frequency shielding effect of a spherical layer is studied. The layer is made of a chiral material and it is electromagnetically characterized with three material parameters: permittivity, permeability, and chirality. Due to chirality, there is magnetoelectric coupling. The electric and magnetic shielding effects are derived and are shown to be functions of the three material parameters and also the relative thickness of the layer. Illustrations display the effects of the various parameters on the shielding, which is different for the magnetic and electric fields. Among the special effects is that the shielding increases rapidly as the chirality parameter approaches the refractive index of the shell. This makes chiral shells in principle effective shields, and in the future they may offer an alternative to conducting materials for novel shielding applications.