Boris Luk’yanchuk

Optically resonant dielectric nanostructures

A clear approach to nanophotonics The resonant modes of plasmonic nanoparticle structures made of gold or silver endow them with an ability to manipulate light at the nanoscale. However, owing to the high light losses caused by metals at optical wavelengths, only a small fraction of plasmonics applications have been realized. Kuznetsov et al. review how high-index dielectric nanoparticles can offer a substitute for these metals, providing a highly flexible and low-loss route to the manipulation of light at the nanoscale. Science, this issue p. 10.1126/science.aag2472 BACKGROUND Nanoscale optics is usually associated with plasmonic structures made of metals such as gold or silver. However, plasmonics suffers from high losses of metals, heating, and incompatibility with complementary metal oxide semiconductor fabrication processes. Recent developments in nanoscale optical physics have led to a new branch of nanophotonics aiming at the manipulation of optically induced Mie resonances in dielectric and semiconductor nanoparticles with high refractive indices. Such particles offer unique opportunities for reduced dissipative losses and large resonant enhancement of both electric and magnetic near-fields. Semiconductor nanostructures also offer longer excited-carrier lifetimes and can be electrically doped and gated to realize subwavelength active devices. These recent developments revolve closely around the nature of the optical resonances of the structures and how they can be manipulated in individual entities and in complex particle arrangements such as metasurfaces. Resonant high-index dielectric nanostructures form new building blocks to realize unique functionalities and novel photonic devices. ADVANCES We discuss the key advantages of resonant high-index nanostructures, associated new physical effects, and applications for nanoantennas, optical sensors, nonlinear devices, and flat optics. For a subwavelength high-index dielectric particle illuminated by a plane wave, electric and magnetic dipole resonances have comparable strengths. The resonant magnetic response results from a coupling of incoming light to the circular displacement currents of the electric field, when the wavelength inside the particle becomes comparable to its diameter d = 2R ≈ λ/n, where R is the nanoparticle radius, n is its refractive index, and λ is the wavelength of light. At the wavelength of a magnetic resonance, the excited magnetic dipole mode of a high-index dielectric sphere may provide a dominant contribution to the scattering efficiency exceeding the contribution of other multipoles by orders of magnitude. Nanophotonic structures composed of dielectric resonators can exhibit many of the same features as plasmonic nanostructures, including enhanced scattering, high-frequency magnetism, and negative refractive index. The specific design and parameter engineering of all-dielectric nanoantennas and metasurfaces give rise to superior performance in comparison to their lossy plasmonic counterparts. Spectral signatures of the Mie-type resonances of these structures are revealed by using far-field spectroscopy while tuning geometrically their resonance properties. A special case is realized when the electric and magnetic resonances spectrally overlap; the impedance matching eliminates the backward scattering, leading to unidirectional scattering and Huygens metasurfaces. A variety of nanoparticle structures have been studied, including dielectric oligomers as well as metasurfaces and metadevices. The magnetic resonances lead to enhanced nonlinear response, Raman scattering, a novel Brewster effect, sharp Fano resonances, and highly efficient sensing and photodetection. OUTLOOK The study of resonant dielectric nanostructures has been established as a new research direction in modern nanophotonics. Because of their unique optically induced electric and magnetic resonances, high-index nanophotonic structures are expected to complement or even replace different plasmonic components in a range of potential applications. The unique low-loss resonant behavior allows reproduction of many subwavelength resonant effects demonstrated in nanophotonics without much energy dissipation into heat. In addition, the coexistence of strong electric and magnetic resonances, their interference, and resonant enhancement of the magnetic field in dielectric nanoparticles bring entirely novel functionalities to simple geometries largely unexplored in plasmonic structures, especially in the nonlinear regime or in optoelectronic device applications. Manifestations of all-dielectric resonant nanophotonics. (A) Structure of the fields near the magnetic dipole resonance. (B) Experimental demonstration of optical magnetic response shown through optical dark-field and scanning electron microscope images (top and bottom, respectively)

Magnetic and electric hotspots with silicon nanodimers

The study of the resonant behavior of silicon nanostructures provides a new route for achieving efficient control of both electric and magnetic components of light. We demonstrate experimentally and numerically that enhancement of localized electric and magnetic fields can be achieved in a silicon nanodimer. For the first time, we experimentally observe hotspots of the magnetic field at visible wavelengths for light polarized across the nanodimers primary axis, using near-field scanning optical microscopy.

Nonradiating anapole modes in dielectric nanoparticles

Nonradiating current configurations attract attention of physicists for many years as possible models of stable atoms. One intriguing example of such a nonradiating source is known as ‘anapole. An anapole mode can be viewed as a composition of electric and toroidal dipole moments, resulting in destructive interference of the radiation fields due to similarity of their far-field scattering patterns. Here we demonstrate experimentally that dielectric nanoparticles can exhibit a radiationless anapole mode in visible. We achieve the spectral overlap of the toroidal and electric dipole modes through a geometry tuning, and observe a highly pronounced dip in the far-field scattering accompanied by the specific near-field distribution associated with the anapole mode. The anapole physics provides a unique playground for the study of electromagnetic properties of nontrivial excitations of complex fields, reciprocity violation and Aharonov–Bohm like phenomena at optical frequencies.

Traditional and emerging materials for optical metasurfaces

Abstract One of the most promising and vibrant research areas in nanotechnology has been the field of metasurfaces. These are two dimensional representations of metaatoms, or artificial interfaces designed to possess specialized electromagnetic properties which do not occur in nature, for specific applications. In this article, we present a brief review of metasurfaces from a materials perspective, and examine how the choice of different materials impact functionalities ranging from operating bandwidth to efficiencies. We place particular emphasis on emerging and non-traditional materials for metasurfaces such as high index dielectrics, topological insulators and digital metamaterials, and the potentially transformative role they could play in shaping further advances in the field.

Resonant Light Guiding Along a Chain of Silicon Nanoparticles

Subwavelength confined waveguiding is experimentally demonstrated with high refractive index dielectric nanoparticles with photon energy propagation at distances beyond 500 μm. These particles have naturally occurring electric and magnetic dipole resonances. When they are placed in a 1D chain, the magnetic resonances of adjacent elements couple to each other, providing a means to transport energy at visible or NIR wavelengths in a confined mode. Chains of nanoparticles made of silicon were fabricated and guided waves were measured with near-field scanning optical microscopy. Propagation loss is quantified at 34 dB/mm for 720 nm and 5.5 dB/mm for 960 nm wavelengths with 150 and 220 nm diameter particles, respectively. Simulations confirm the unique properties of this waveguiding in comparison with photonic crystals. The resonant nature of the waveguide lays a foundation for integrated photonics beyond nanowire waveguides of silicon and silicon nitride. This technology is promising for more compact and deeper photonic integration such as right angle bends, more compact modulators, slow light and interfacing with single photon emitters for photonic integrated circuits, quantum communications, and biosensing.

Light-Driven Acoustic Band Gap Based on Metal Nanospheres

In this paper, light-driven acoustic band gap is presented by considering two metal nanospheres illuminated simultaneously by laser and acoustic waves. The interaction between the photonics and phonons is investigated through optical distribution force, van der Waals distribution force, and acoustic pressure upon these nanospheres. Based on the optical force and van der Waals force, the acoustic form functions for the metal nanoaggregates with different optical intensity are calculated, and the light-driven acoustics band gap at low frequency band has been found. It is shown that the band gap width can be widened with increasing the incident laser intensity, or by using proper metal materials and background media. This could provide potential applications in optical nanoswitches and acoustical filters.

Silicon Nanoparticles for Waveguiding

Guiding of photon energy on the subwavelength scale has long been a goal of the nanophotonics community. We present experimental results on guiding visible light using silicon nanoparticles with losses as low as 2.5dB/100 micrometers.

Silicon NanoDimers for Magnetic and Electric Field Hotspots

Dielectric nanostructures with a high refractive index are of interest for ultimate control of light in the near-field. We demonstrate, experimentally and numerically, the existence of electric and magnetic field hotspots near silicon nanodimers.