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Ebrahim I et al. i [3] investigate the temporal dynamics in strongly coupled ENZ plasmonic systems, illustrating the dynamics of field enhancement processes and highlighting the impact of dissipation loss. Beruete I et al. i [14] demonstrate experimentally the unusual waveguiding features of zero-permittivity structures with applications for enhanced sensing, and in parallel, Nicolussi I et al. i [15] discuss unusual unidirectional transparency in waveguides featuring zero-permittivity materials obeying parity-time symmetry. Zero-index metamaterials (photonic materials and artificial media with a near-zero refractive index in different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum) make possible novel forms of light-matter interactions where light behaves in a qualitatively different way than in conventional materials. [Extracted from the article]

We explore the enhancement mechanisms associated with combined Fano resonances in metasurfaces, demonstrating enhanced absorption efficiency of thin-film organic solar cells over a moderately broad bandwidth of operation. An integrated AM1.5G (air mass 1.5 global solar energy) absorption enhancement of up to 44.6% is obtained, corresponding to an increase in solar absorption at normal incidence from 48% to 69.4%. Fano resonances are induced in arrays of four asymmetric-arranged nanodisks (nanopillars) with small inter-disk gaps, incorporated into an organic thin-film. They are shown to play a dominant role in light-trapping enhancement, mediated by combined localized surface plasmon resonances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this Letter, a bilaminate acoustic cloak designed using scattering cancellation methods is applied to the case of an acoustic sensor consisting of a hollow piezoelectric shell with mechanical absorption. The bilaminate cloak provides 20-50 dB reduction in scattering strength relative to the uncloaked configuration over the typical range of operation for an acoustic sensor, retains its ability to sensing acoustic pressure signals, and remains within the physical bounds of a passive absorber. Further, the cloak is shown to increase the range of frequencies over which there is nearly perfect phase fidelity between the acoustic signal and the voltage generated by the sensor. The feasibility of achieving the necessary fluid layer properties is demonstrated using sonic crystals with the use of readily available acoustic materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy confinement plays an important role in improving wave–matter interactions, enabling applications such as sensing, lasing, and filtering. One convenient solution for achieving large energy-confinement is based on embedded eigenstates, i.e., non-radiating eigenmodes supported by open structures. While the analysis of these modes is quite consolidated in electromagnetics and optics, their relevance in acoustics has been less explored, despite their wide application potential. In this work, we explore acoustic embedded scattering eigenstates within the radiation continuum enabled by resonant metasurface pairs. At resonance, each metasurface strongly reflects the input wave, but as their surface resonances interfere with each other through coupling with a longitudinal resonance, an embedded eigenstate emerges. Through both theoretical and numerical analysis, we show the conditions for such an exotic resonant state to emerge and its implication for acoustic systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Acoustic metamaterials and metasurfaces have been explored in the past few years to realize a wide range of extreme responses for sound waves. As one remarkable phenomenon, extreme anisotropy and hyperbolic sound propagation are particularly challenging to realize compared to electromagnetic waves because of the scalar nature of airborne acoustics. In parallel, moiré superlattices and the rapidly expanding domain of twistronics have shown that large anisotropy combined with tailored geometrical rotations can enable tantalizing emerging phenomena, such as tailored phase transitions in metamaterials. Connecting these areas of research, here, we explore the realization of acoustic hyperbolic metasurfaces and their combination to drive topological phase transitions from hyperbolic to elliptic sound propagation. The transition point occurring at a specific rotation angle between two acoustic metasurfaces supports highly directional canalization of sound, opening exciting opportunities for twisted acoustics metasurfaces for robust surface wave guiding and steering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Here we present a roadmap on Photonic metasurfaces. This document consists of a number of perspective articles on different applications, challenge areas or technologies underlying photonic metasurfaces. Each perspective will introduce the topic, present a state of the art as well as give an insight into the future direction of the subfield. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Special Topic collection provides an opportunity for the broad readership of Applied Physics Letters to get a glimpse of the recent advances in the area of metastructures and their applications. The main idea, borrowed from condensed matter physics, is that the nontrivial topological features of the band diagram of a metamaterial can be translated into an unusually robust boundary propagation of waves, of great interest for various applications from microwaves, photonics to acoustics. Huang I et al. i [32] as well as Mi I et al. i [36] and Zaccherini I et al. i [37] discuss various metamaterial geometries supporting broadband absorption exploiting sophisticated sound-matter interactions. The exotic wave phenomena in metastructures and their wide applications are one of the most researched subjects in electromagnetic waves and photonics, from radio frequencies to optics, and extend into several other disciplines, such as acoustics, mechanics, thermodynamics, materials science, condensed matter, etc. [Extracted from the article]

We investigate the use of a split-ring resonator (SRR) incorporated with an atomic-vapor cell to improve the sensitivity and the minimal detectable electric (E) field of Rydberg atom-based sensors. In this approach, a sub-wavelength SRR is placed around an atomic vapor-cell filled with cesium atoms for E-field measurements at 1.3 GHz. The SRR provides a factor of 100 in the enhancement of the E-field measurement sensitivity. Using electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) with Aulter–Townes splitting, E-field measurements down to 5 mV/m are demonstrated with the SRR, while in the absence of the SRR, the minimal detectable field is 500 mV/m. We demonstrate that by combining EIT with a heterodyne Rydberg atom-based mixer approach, the SRR allows for a sensitivity of 5.5 μV/m Hz , which is two-orders of magnitude improvement in sensitivity than when the SRR is not used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nonreciprocal optical devices based on magneto-optical ferrites in their low-loss regimes have been widely investigated as a promising platform for integrated photonics. Nonreciprocity in such devices originates from circular birefringence, leading to frequency splitting of forward and backward modes and, as a result, nonreciprocal transmission. In this paper, we propose an alternative approach to realize nonreciprocal devices based on magneto-optical circular dichroism and relying on the very presence of optical absorption. Our approach relies on the phenomenon of spin-Hall effect of light, which gives rise to chiral near field interactions of light carrying transverse angular momentum with matter, which, in lossy regimes, yields a disparate absorption for forward and backward optical modes. As an example of practical application, we design an optical isolator based on ring resonator integrating Ce:YIG ferrite, and we demonstrate isolation near 880 nm absorption line due to the ionic electric dipole transition. A Ce:YIG film asymmetrically placed on the inner side of the ring yields different critical coupling conditions due to the chiral nature of evanescent light for forward and backward waves, leading to nonreciprocal absorption and transmission. The proposed approach to nonreciprocity may significantly broaden the possible choice of magneto-optical materials for nonreciprocal devices, enabling operation even in lossy regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In analogy to Lifshitz transitions in electronic systems, topological transitions have recently attracted widespread attention in photonic metamaterials, metasurfaces, and two-dimensional materials, enabling exotic regimes for light-matter interactions. Here, we discuss and study enhanced photonic local density of states in twisted hyperbolic bilayers, enabled by topological transitions emerging at specific twist angles. Our results enhance the understanding of nanoscale light-matter interactions in stacked optical materials as they are rotated with respect to each other in the context of twistronics and suggest emerging applications of these concepts for photonics, including for the manipulation of radiative heat transfer and the control and harvesting of light at the nanoscale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organic light emitting diodes can achieve close to unitary internal quantum efficiency; however, their external quantum efficiency is much lower due to losses within the device. Gradient metasurfaces and metagratings can be utilized to achieve substantial electromagnetic field manipulation and enhancement of the local density of photonic states, thereby improving the external quantum efficiency of organic light emitting devices. In this work, we show how suitably designed reflecting plasmonic metagratings can be potentially incorporated into a top-emitting organic light emitting device, resulting in large enhancement of light emissivity by effectively coupling out the light trapped in the waveguide modes. We describe how both periodic and quasiperiodic metagratings can be used to improve device performance. Electromagnetic simulations and measurements show that our metagratings greatly enhance the electromagnetic field intensity in the light emission layer, leading to increased emission normal to the plane of the layers (by up to a factor of 4.8) and suppression of light trapping typically lost into waveguide modes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have modeled, fabricated, and characterized a plasmonic metasurface with subwavelength features, whose dominant resonance is the independent of incident angle and polarization, and sensitive only to the material composition and geometry of a single element. Higher-order resonances, associated with surface plasmon polariton (SPP) coupling and higher diffraction orders, are sensitive to the incident angle and the array periodicity and less pronounced compared with the metasurface resonance. Numerical simulations and theoretical analysis highlight a clear physical difference between the SPP resonances and the dominant metasurface collective resonance, whose properties may be of great interest for plasmonic solar cells and subwavelength color filters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Commercially available nonreciprocal devices, such as isolators and circulators, play a fundamental role in communication systems. Since they commonly rely on magnetic materials, they tend to become bulky, expensive, and difficult to be integrated in conventional microelectronic circuits. Here, we explore the functionality of a magnetic-free circulator where reciprocity is broken by suitable geometric asymmetries combined with tailored nonlinearities. We show that it is possible to operate a fully passive coupled resonator system without external bias like a circulator for pulsed signals impinging at its ports within a desired range of intensities. The functionality can be applied to a variety of physical systems, ranging from electronics to photonics and acoustics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new class of phenomena stemming from topological states of quantum matter has recently found a variety of analogies in classical systems. Spin-locking and one-way propagation have been shown to drastically alter scattering of electromagnetic waves, thus offering an unprecedented robustness to defects and disorder. Despite these successes, bringing these new ideas to practical grounds meets a number of serious limitations. In photonics, when it is crucial to implement topological photonic devices on a chip, two major challenges are associated with electromagnetic dissipation into heat and out-of-plane radiation into free space. Both these mechanisms may destroy the topological state and seriously affect the device performance. Here, we demonstrate experimentally that the topological order for light can be implemented in all-dielectric on-chip prototype metasurfaces, which mitigate the effect of Ohmic losses by using exclusively structured dielectric materials, and we reveal that coupling of the system to the radiative continuum does not affect topological properties. We demonstrate the spin-Hall effect of light for spin-polarized topological edge states through near-field spectroscopy measurements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We show that properly designed mantle cloaks, consisting of patterned metallic sheets placed around cylindrical monopoles, allow tightly packing the same antennas together in a highly dense telecommunication platform. Our experimental demonstration is applied to the relevant example of two cylindrical monopole radiators operating for 3G and 4G mobile communications. The two antennas are placed in close proximity, separated by 1/10 of the shorter operational wavelength, and, after cloaking, are shown to remarkably operate as if isolated in free-space. This result paves the way to unprecedented co-siting strategies for multiple antennas handling different services and installed in overcrowded platforms, such as communication towers, satellite payloads, aircrafts, or ship trees. More broadly, this work presents a significant application of cloaking technology to improve the efficiency of modern communication systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We discuss the possibility to realize sharp Fano scattering signatures in the ultraviolet (UV) range, based on dipolar scattering of nanoparticles. At these frequencies, material losses usually do not allow sharp resonant effects, hindering plasmonic applications based on higher-order multipolar modes, like conventional Fano resonances. We propose to excite degenerate scattering states supported by core-shell nanoparticles made of a sapphire core and an aluminum shell. We predict enhanced, highly confined fields, supporting sharp far-field scattering signatures from single nanoparticles and planar arrays of them. These results may lead to the design of UV filters, photodetectors, sensors, and energy-harvesting devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We demonstrate efficient optical directional beaming using an array of sub-wavelength patterns on a metallic surface. Specifically, a sub-wavelength sized slit placed next to a periodic grating is designed and optimized to realize maximum coupling efficiency and directional radiation into a leaky-wave plasmonic mode. Collective scattering from the corrugations forming the grating is synthesized to radiate towards the desired direction, and efficient beaming is achieved through tailoring the design parameters with a simple analytical model. We also prove that directivity can be further enhanced by improving the slit-grating coupling efficiency through efficient plasmon generation, showing improved angular response in far-field radiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose the use of an ultrathin cloak made of an acoustic surface impedance that leads to invisibility for acoustic waves. Unlike current acoustic cloaks that require volumetric metamaterials and a significant shell thickness, the mantle cloak presented here is based on a patterned acoustic metasurface that produces similar effects in a thinner geometry. We show that by covering a cylindrical obstacle by a specific acoustic surface impedance, the total scattering may be significantly reduced in the near- and the far-field, thus suppressing its overall acoustic signature. Potential applications lie in low-detectability, camouflaging, and non-invasive acoustic probing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]