Dielectric metasurfaces perform unique photonics effects and serve as the engine of nowadays lightmatter technologies. Here, we suggest theoretically and demonstrate experimentally the realization of a high transparency effect in a novel type of all-dielectric metasurface, where each constituting meta-atom of the lattice presents the so-called transverse Kerker effect. In contrast to Huygens' metasurfaces, both phase and amplitude of the incoming wave remain unperturbed at the resonant frequency and, consequently, our metasurface totally operates in the invisibility regime. We prove experimentally, for the microwave frequency range, that both phase and amplitude of the transmitted wave from the metasurface remain almost unaffected. Finally, we demonstrate both numerically and experimentally and explain theoretically in detail a novel mechanism to achieve perfect absorption of the incident light enabled by the resonant response of the dielectric metasurfaces placed in the vicinity of a conducting substrate. In the subdiffractive limit, we show the aforementioned effects are mainly determined by the optical response of the constituting meta-atoms rather than the collective lattice contributions. With the spectrum scalability, our findings can be incorporated in engineering devices for energy harvesting, nonlinear phenomena and filters applications.

Modern nanophotonics has witnessed the rise of “electric anapoles” (EDAs), destructive interferences of electric and toroidal electric dipoles, actively exploited to resonantly decrease radiation from nanoresonators. However, the inherent duality in Maxwell equations suggests the intriguing possibility of “magnetic anapoles,” involving a nonradiating composition of a magnetic dipole and a magnetic toroidal dipole. Here, a hybrid anapole (HA) of mixed electric and magnetic character is predicted and observed experimentally via dark field spectroscopy, with all the dominant multipoles being suppressed by the toroidal terms in a nanocylinder. Breaking the spherical symmetry allows to overlap up to four anapoles stemming from different multipoles with just two tuning parameters. This effect is due to a symmetry‐allowed connection between the resonator multipolar response and its eigenstates. The authors delve into the physics of such current configurations in the stationary and transient regimes and explore new ultrafast phenomena arising at sub‐picosecond timescales, associated with the HA dynamics. The theoretical results allow the design of non‐Huygens metasurfaces featuring a dual functionality: perfect transparency in the stationary regime and controllable ultrashort pulse beatings in the transient. Besides offering significant advantages with respect to EDAs, HAs can play an essential role in developing the emerging field of ultrafast resonant phenomena.

Nonradiating sources of energy realized under a wave scattering on high-index dielectric nanoparticles have attracted a lot of attention in nano-optics and nanophotonics. They do not emit energy to the far-field, but simultaneously provides strong near-field energy confinement. Near-field wireless power transfer technologies suffer from low efficiency and short operation distance. The key factor to improve efficiency is to reduce the radiation loss of the resonators included in the transmitter and receiver. In this paper, we develop a wireless power transfer system based on nonradiating sources implemented using colossal permittivity dielectric disk resonator and a subwavelength metal loop. We demonstrate that this nonradiating nature is due to the hybrid anapole state originated by destructive interference of the fields generated by multipole moments of different parts of the nonradiating source, without a contribution of toroidal moments. We experimentally investigate a wireless power transfer system prototype and demonstrate that higher efficiency can be achieved when operating on the nonradiating hybrid anapole state compared to the systems operating on magnetic dipole and magnetic quadrupole modes due to the radiation loss suppression.

All-dielectric nanophotonics has become one of the most active fields of research in modern optics, largely due to the opportunities offered by the simultaneous resonant control of electric and magnetic components of light at the nanoscale. In this rapidly evolving scenario, the possibility to design artificial Huygens sources by overlapping electric and magnetic resonances has established a new paradigm in flat optics, bringing devices closer to efficient wavefront shaping with direct phase engineering at the level of the individual meta-atoms. However, their efficiency is fundamentally limited by the near-field coupling between the constituents of the metalattice. In this work, we challenge this well-conceived notion and propose an alternative concept to achieve phase control and full transmission in metasurfaces, based on the unusual properties of the nonradiating sources known as hybrid anapoles (HAs). We analyze theoretically an array of such sources and demonstrate that HAs are characterized by negligible coupling with their neighbors. Therefore, in contrast to Huygens particles, the proposed sources can operate as individual meta-atoms even in highly compact designs, becoming robust against strong disorder and preserving its characteristics when deposited on dielectric substrates. Remarkably, the phase of the transmitted wave can be modulated with negligible reflection. To illustrate the capabilities of our platform, we also utilize a disordered HA array to implement a controlled phase modulation to an ultrafast Gaussian pulse. The results of our study represent a departure from the currently established designs and open an avenue toward the realization of new devices for flat optics with unprecedented efficiency.

The ever-growing field of microfluidics requires precise and flexible control over fluid flow at the micro-and nanoscales. Current constraints demand a variety of controllable components for performing different operations inside closed microchambers and microreactors. In this context, novel nanophotonic approaches can significantly enhance existing capabilities and provide new functionalities via finely tuned light-matter interaction mechanisms. Here we propose a novel design, featuring a dual functionality on-chip: boosted optically-driven particle diffusion and nanoparticle sorting. Our methodology is based on a specially designed high-index dielectric nanoantenna, which strongly enhances spin-orbit angular momentum transfer from an incident laser beam to the scattered field. As a result, exceptionally compact, subwavelength optical nanovortices are formed and drive spiral motion of peculiar plasmonic nanoparticles via the efficient interplay between curled spin optical forces and radiation pressure. The nanovortex size is an order of magnitude smaller than that provided by conventional beam-based approaches. The nanoparticles mediate nano-confined fluid motion enabling nanomixing without a need of moving bulk elements inside a microchamber. Moreover, precise sorting of gold nanoparticles, demanded for on-chip separation and filtering, can be achieved by exploiting the nontrivial dependence of the curled optical forces on the nanoobjects' size. Altogether, this study introduces a versatile platform for further miniaturization of moving-part-free, optically driven microfluidic chips for fast chemical synthesis and analysis, preparation of emulsions, or generation of chemical gradients with light-controlled navigation of nanoparticles, viruses or biomolecules.