: Helgert, C.; Pshenay-Severin, E.; Falkner, M.; Menzel, C.; Rockstuhl, C.; Kley, E.-B.; Tünnermann, A.; Lederer, F.; Pertsch, T.

Abstract
We introduce a top-down fabricated metamaterial composed of three-dimensional, chiral, plasmonic nanostructures for visible and near-infrared wavelengths. Based on a combined spectroscopic and interferometric characterization, the entire complex transmission response in terms of a Jones matrix is disclosed. Particularly, the polarization output state of light after propagation through the nanostructures can be decoded from the measurements for any excitation configuration. We experimentally found a rotation of the polarization azimuth of linearly polarized light exceeding 50degrees at wavelengths around 1.08 mum. This corresponds to a specific rotation which is significantly larger than that of any linear, passive, and reciprocal medium reported to date.