Optical bound states in the continuum (BIC) are localized states with energy lying above the light line and having infinite lifetime. Any losses taking place in real systems result in transformation of the bound states into resonant states with finite lifetime. In this Letter, we analyze properties of BIC in CMOS-compatible one-dimensional photonic structure based on silicon-on-insulator wafer at telecommunication wavelengths, where the absorption of silicon is negligible. We reveal that a high-index substrate could destroy both off-Γ BIC and in-plane symmetry protected at-Γ BIC turning them into resonant states due to leakage into the diffraction channels opening in the substrate. We show how two concurrent loss mechanisms, scattering due to surface roughness and leakage into substrate, contribute to the suppression of the resonance lifetime and specify the condition when one of the mechanisms becomes dominant. The obtained results provide useful guidelines for practical implementations of structures supporting optical bound states in the continuum.

All-dielectric metasurfaces comprising arrays of nanostructured high-refractive-index materials are re-imagining what is achievable in terms of the manipulation of light. However, the functionality of conventional dielectric-based metasurfaces is fixed by design; thus, their optical response is locked in at the fabrication stage. A far wider range of applications could be addressed if dynamic and reconfigurable control were possible. We demonstrate this here via the novel concept of hybrid metasurfaces, in which reconfigurability is achieved by embedding sub-wavelength inclusions of chalcogenide phase-change materials within the body of silicon nanoresonators. By strategic placement of an ultra-thin G e 2 S b 2 T e 5 layer and reversible switching of its phase-state, we show individual, multilevel, and dynamic control of metasurface resonances. We showcase our concept via the design, fabrication, and characterization of metadevices capable of dynamically filtering and modulating light in the near infrared (O and C telecom bands), with modulation depths as high as 70% and multilevel tunability. Finally, we show numerically how the same approach can be re-scaled to shorter wavelengths via appropriate material selection, paving the way to additional applications, such as high-efficiency vivid structural color generators in the visible spectrum. We believe that the concept of hybrid all-dielectric/phase-change metasurfaces presented in this work could pave the way for a wide range of design possibilities in terms of multilevel, reconfigurable, and high-efficiency light manipulation.

Optical bound states in the continuum (BICs) provide a way to engineer resonant response in photonic crystals with giant quality factors. The extended interaction time in such systems is particularly promising for enhancement of nonlinear optical processes and development of a new generation of active optical devices. However, the achievable interaction strength is limited by the purely photonic character of optical BICs. Here, 1 arXiv:1905.13505v1 [cond-mat.mes-hall] 31 May 2019 we mix optical BIC in a photonic crystal slab with excitons in atomically thin transition metal dichalcogenide MoSe 2 via strong coupling to form exciton-polaritons with Rabi splitting exceeding 27 meV. We experimentally show BIC-like behavior of both upper and lower polariton branches, with complete suppression of radiation into far-field at the BIC wavevector and strongly varying Q-factor in its vicinity. Owing to an effective disorder averaging through motional narrowing, we achieve small polariton linewidth of 2 meV and demonstrate linewidth control via angle and temperature tuning. Our results pave the way towards developing tunable BIC-based polaritonic devices for sensing, lasing, and nonlinear optics. Optical bound states in the continuum (BICs), supported by photonic crystal structures of certain geometries, have received much attention recently as a novel approach to generating extremely spectrally narrow resonant responses. 1,2 Since BICs are uncoupled from the radiation continuum through symmetry protection 3 or resonance trapping, 4 their high quality factors, while reaching 10 5 − 10 6 , can be robust to perturbations of photonic crystal geometric parameters. This enables a broad range of practical applications, including recently demonstrated spectral filtering, 5 chemical and biological sensing, 6,7 and lasing. 4Providing an efficient light-trapping mechanism, optical BICs are particularly attractive for enhancing nonlinear optical effects, with recent theoretical proposals discussing enhanced bistability 8 and Kerr-type focusing nonlinearity. 9 However, for practical realization of these proposals, a significantly stronger material nonlinear susceptibility is needed than generally available in dielectric-based photonic crystals.An attractive approach to the enhancement of effective nonlinearity is through the use of exciton-polaritons -hybrid quasi-particles that inherit both the coherent properties of photonic modes and interaction strength of excitons. 10,11 Hybrid nanophotonic systems incorporating atomically thin transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have proven to be a particularly promising platform owing to their ease of fabrication and possibility of room temperature operation. [12][13][14] In addition to conventional microcavity-based designs, TMD

We reveal unusually strong polarization sensitivity of electric and magnetic dipole resonances of high‐index dielectric nanoparticles placed on a metallic film. By employing dark‐field spectroscopy, we observe the polarization‐controlled transformation from high‐Q magnetic‐dipole scattering to broadband suppression of scattering associated with the electric dipole mode, and show numerically that it is accompanied by a strong enhancement of the respective fields by the nanoparticle. Our experimental data for silicon nanospheres are in an excellent agreement with both analytical calculations based on Green's function approach and the full‐wave numerical simulations. Our findings further substantiate dielectric nanoparticles as strong candidates for many applications in enhanced sensing, spectroscopy and nonlinear processes at the nanoscale.

We report on the first experimental observation of topological edge states in zigzag chains of plasmonic nanodisks. We demonstrate that such edge states can be selectively excited with the linear polarization of the incident light, and visualize them directly by near-field scanning optical microscopy. Our work provides experimental verification of a novel paradigm for manipulating light at the nanoscale in topologically nontrivial structures.

Achieving efficient localization of white light at the nanoscale is a major challenge due to the diffraction limit, and nanoscale emitters generating light with a broadband spectrum require complicated engineering. Here we suggest a simple, yet highly efficient, nanoscale white-light source based on a hybrid Si/Au nanoparticle with ultrabroadband (1.3-3.4 eV) spectral characteristics. We incorporate this novel source into a scanning-probe microscope and observe broadband spectrum of photoluminescence that allows fast mapping of local optical response of advanced nanophotonic structures with submicron resolution, thus realizing ultrabroadband near-field nanospectroscopy.

Surface electromagnetic waves are characterized by the intrinsic spin‐orbit interaction which results in the fascinating spin‐momentum locking. Therefore, directional coupling of light to surface waves can be achieved through chiral nanoantennas. Here, we show that dielectric nanoantenna provides chiral response with strong spectral dependence due to the interference of electric and magnetic dipole momenta when placed in the vicinity of the metal‐air interface. Remarkably, chiral behaviour in the proposed scheme does not require elliptical polarization of the pump beam or the geometric chirality of the nanoantenna. We show that the proposed ultracompact and simple dielectric nanoantenna allows for both directional launching of surface plasmon polaritons on a thin gold film and their demultiplexing with a high spectral resolution.

We study experimentally both magnetic and electric optically induced resonances of silicon nanoparticles by combining polarization-resolved dark-field spectroscopy and near-field scanning optical microscopy measurements. We reveal that the scattering spectra exhibit strong sensitivity of electric dipole response to the probing beam polarization and attribute the characteristic asymmetry of measured near-field patterns to the excitation of a magnetic dipole mode. The proposed experimental approach can serve as a powerful tool for the study of photonic nanostructures possessing both electric and magnetic optical responses.