No Arabic abstract
Nonradiating current configurations attract attention of physicists for many years as possible models of stable atoms in the field theories. One intriguing example of such a nonradiating source is known as anapole (which means without poles in Greek), and it was originally proposed by Yakov Zeldovich in nuclear physics. Recently, an anapole was suggested as a model of elementary particles describing dark matter in the Universe. Classically, 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.
Realization of electromagnetic energy confinement beyond the diffraction limit is of paramount importance for novel applications like nano-imaging, information processing, and energy harvest. Current approaches based on surface plasmon polaritons and photonic crystals are either intrinsically lossy or with low coupling efficiency. Herein, we successfully address these challenges by constructing an array of nonradiative anapoles that originate from the destructive far-field interference of electric and toroidal dipole modes. The proposed metachain can achieve ultracompact (1/13 of incident wavelength) and high-efficiency electromagnetic energy transfer without the coupler. We experimentally investigate the proposed metachain at mid-infrared and give the first near-field experimental evidence of anapole-based energy transfer, in which the spatial profile of anapole mode is also unambiguously identified at nanoscale. We further demonstrate the metachain is intrinsically lossless and scalable at infrared wavelengths, realizing a 90$^circ$ bending loss down to 0.32 dB at the optical communication wavelength. The present scheme bridges the gap between the energy confinement and transfer of anapoles, and opens a new gate for more compactly integrated photonic and energy devices, which can operate in a broad spectral range.
Modern nanophotonics has witnessed the rise of electric anapoles, destructive interferences of electric dipoles and toroidal electric dipoles, actively exploited to cancel electric dipole radiation from nanoresonators. However, the inherent duality of Maxwells equations suggests the intriguing possibility of magnetic anapoles, involving a nonradiating composition of a magnetic dipole and a magnetic toroidal dipole. Here, we predict, fabricate and observe experimentally via a series of dark field spectroscopy measurements a hybrid anapole of mixed electric and magnetic character, with all the dominant multipoles being suppressed by the toroidal terms in a nanocylinder. We delve into the physics of such exotic current configurations in the stationary and transient regimes and predict a number of ultrafast phenomena taking place within sub-ps times after the breakdown of the hybrid anapole. Based on the preceding theory, we design a non-Huygens metasurface featuring a dual functionality: perfect transparency in the stationary regime and controllable ultrashort pulse beatings in the transient.
Achieving cavity-optomechanical strong coupling with high-frequency phonons provides a rich avenue for quantum technology development including quantum state-transfer, memory, and transduction, as well as enabling several fundamental studies of macroscopic phononic degrees-of-freedom. Reaching such coupling with GHz mechanical modes however has proved challenging, with a prominent hindrance being material- and surface-induced-optical absorption in many materials. Here, we circumvent these challenges and report the observation of optomechanical strong coupling to a high frequency (11 GHz) mechanical mode of a fused-silica whispering-gallery microresonator via the electrostrictive Brillouin interaction. Using an optical heterodyne detection scheme, the anti-Stokes light backscattered from the resonator is measured and normal-mode splitting and an avoided crossing are observed in the recorded spectra, providing unambiguous signatures of strong coupling. The optomechanical coupling rate reaches values as high as $G/2pi = 39 text{MHz}$ through the use of an auxiliary pump resonance, where the coupling dominates both the optical ($kappa/2pi = 3 text{MHz}$) and the mechanical ($gamma_text{m}/2pi = 21 text{MHz}$) amplitude decay rates. Our findings provide a promising new approach for optical quantum control using light and sound.
We predict the simultaneous occurrence of two fundamental phenomena for metal nanoparticles possessing sharp corners: First, the main plasmonic dipolar mode experiences strong red shift with decreasing corner curvature radius; its resonant frequency is controlled by the apex angle of the corner and the normalized (to the particle size) corner curvature. Second, the split-off plasmonic mode experiences strong localization at the corners. Altogether, this paves the way for tailoring of metal nano-structures providing wavelength-selective excitation of localized plasmons and a strong near-field enhancement of linear and nonlinear optical phenomena.
Vacuum fluctuations are a fundamental feature of quantized fields. It is usually assumed that observations connected to vacuum fluctuations require a system well isolated from other influences. In this work, we demonstrate that effects of the quantum vacuum can already occur in simple colloidal nano-assemblies prepared by wet chemistry. We claim that the electromagnetic field fluctuations at the zero-point level saturate the absorption of dye molecules self-assembled at the surface of plasmonic nano-resonators. For this effect to occur, reaching the strong coupling regime between the plasmons and excitons is not required. This intriguing effect of vacuum-induced saturation (VISA) is discussed within a simple quantum optics picture and demonstrated by comparing the optical spectra of hybrid gold-core dye-shell nanorods to electromagnetic simulations.