reflekton

Reflekton is a hypothetical excitation proposed in optics and materials science to describe a localized, interface-bound carrier associated with the reflection of electromagnetic waves at boundaries. In this account, the reflekton is not a free particle in the bulk medium but a surface or interfacial mode that participates in the momentum and energy balance when light reflects from a boundary between two media.

Various theoretical treatments of wave reflection invoke boundary conditions at an interface; the reflekton concept posits that these conditions give rise to a discrete interfacial mode with a characteristic dispersion that couples to incident and reflected waves. It is analogous in spirit to other quasiparticles, such as surface plasmon polaritons, but localized specifically to reflection events rather than continuous propagation along a surface.

Proposed properties include confinement to the vicinity of the interface, a dispersion relation dependent on the two media, bosonic statistics, and a short lifetime limited by coupling to bulk modes and surface dissipation. It is often envisioned as carrying a portion of the tangential momentum associated with the reflected wave and contributing to phase shifts observed upon reflection.

As of today, reflekton remains speculative with no broadly accepted experimental confirmation. Researchers have suggested indirect signatures in anomalous reflection coefficients, near-field measurements, or in designs of metasurfaces engineered to accentuate interfacial responses.

If validated, the concept could inform models of light-matter interaction at interfaces, influence the design of reflective metasurfaces or sensors, and complement existing descriptions of surface-bound excitations such as surface plasmon polaritons and bound states in the continuum. See also reflection, optics, metamaterials.