Fig. 1. Astronomical gravitational black holes swallow everything that crosses their event horizon. Their counterpart, the white hole, rejects everything, and it is hypothesized that its event horizon cannot be crossed from outside. The “optical black and white holes” absorb and reject all light depending on its polarization.

Fig. 2. Mechanism of complete absorption and complete rejection of light. Spatially coherent and normally incident (a) s-polarized light interferes constructively on a thin-film absorber placed at the bisector plane separating two mirrors set at a right angle to each other, resulting in coherent absorption, whereas (b) p-polarized light interferes destructively, resulting in coherent transmission, in principle with unlimited bandwidth. Destructive interference of incident p-polarized light occurs due to a geometric phase difference of π that arises from the rotation of the polarization state upon reflection, as illustrated on the Poincaré sphere. Constructive interference of incident s-polarized light is due to the absence of any polarization change and associated geometric phase.

Fig. 3. Observation of the optical black and white hole analogs. Measured reflectivity and absorptivity of a chromium thin film on the interface between two identical glass prisms for (a) s- and (b) p-polarized light as a function of the angle of incidence. Absorption of s-polarized light (black hole) and rejection of p-polarized light (white hole) occur around normal incidence.

Fig. 4. Broadband absorption and rejection of light by optical (a) black and (b) white holes. Measured reflectivity and absorptivity as a function of wavelength at normal incidence. Inset simulations illustrate the absence of reflection from the device for the black hole case (a) and the formation of a standing wave due to interference of incident and reflected light for the white hole case (b).