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This paper investigates the dispersion characteristics of a highly anisotropic metamaterial comprised of metal square patches arranged in a glide symmetry pattern and submerged in vacuum. Theoretical formulas are proposed to describe the electromagnetic tensors of a corresponding uniaxial effective medium with dielectric and magnetic responses. In addition, this work employs theoretical analysis and numerical simulations to examine the interaction between the metamaterial and electromagnetic waves across a broad spectral range. Band diagrams and isofrequency contours show good agreement between theoretical and numerical results for low frequencies and certain directions of propagation at higher frequencies. The ease of designing the metamaterial structure for various applications is facilitated by the derived theoretical formulas, which enable accurate prediction of the electromagnetic response across a wide range of frequencies based on geometric parameters.

The study is focused on the dispersion properties of a wire medium formed by a rectangular lattice of parallel wires at the frequencies close to its plasma frequency. While the effective medium theory predicts isotropic behaviour of transverse magnetic (TM) waves in the structure, numerical simulations reveal noticeable anisotropic properties. This anisotropy is dependent on the lattice rectangularity and reaches over 6% and over 75% along and across the wires respectively for thick wires with the radii about 20 times smaller than the smallest period. This conclusion is confirmed by line-of-current approximation theory. The revealed anisotropy effect is observed when the wavelength at the plasma frequency is comparable to the period of the structure. The effect vanishes in the case of extremely thin wires. A dispersion relation for TM waves in the vicinity of the $\Gamma$-point was obtained in a closed form. This provides an analytical description of the anisotropy effect.

Despite the apparent simplicity, the problem of refraction of electromagnetic waves at the planar interface between two media has an incredibly rich spectrum of unusual phenomena. An example is the paradox that occurs when an electromagnetic wave is incident on the interface between a hyperbolic medium and an isotropic dielectric. At certain orientations of the optical axis of the hyperbolic medium relative to the interface, the reflected and transmitted waves are completely absent. In this paper, we formulate the aforementioned paradox and present its resolution by introduction of infinitesimal losses in a hyperbolic medium. We show that the reflected wave exists, but became extremely decaying as the loss parameter tends to zero. As a consequence, all the energy scattered into the reflected channel is absorbed at the interface. We support our reasoning with analytical calculations, numerical simulations, and an experiment with self-complementary metasurfaces in the microwave region. In addition to the great fundamental interest, this paradox resolution discovers a plethora of applications for the reflectors, refractors, absorbers, lenses, antennas, camouflage and holography applications., Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures

Unipolar and quasi-unipolar half-cycle pulses having nonzero electric pulse area are a limit of pulse shortening in a given spectral range. In spite of the fact that existence of such pulses was considered by Jackson (1962), V.L. Ginzburg (1960-s), Bullough and Ahmad (1971) as well as Bessonov (1981), the possibility of their existence and propagation in space remained questionable for many years. Only within the past decades both the possibility of unipolar pulse existence and their propagation dynamics were shown and analyzed in detail theoretically and experimentally. So far such pulses became a subject of active research due to their potential in the ultra-fast optics and study of new regimes of light-matter interactions with subcycle resolution. Here, we show the possibility of the effective ultrafast control of the level populations in quantum well nanostructures by the half-cycle unipolar attosecond light pulses in comparison to the single-cycle ones. It is shown that the population dynamics can be determined by the electric pulse area divided to its characteristic "scale" determined by the quantum well width. The selective excitation of quantum states and the feasibility of the population inversion by the subcycle unipolar pulses is demonstrated.

Electromagnetic scattering bounds on subwavelength structures play an important role in estimating performances of antennas, RFID tags, and other wireless communication devices. An appealing approach to increase a scattering cross-section is accommodating several spectrally overlapping resonances within a structure. However, numerous fundamental and practical restrictions have been found and led to the formulation of Chu-Harrington, Geyi, and other limits, which provide an upper bound to scattering efficiencies. Here we introduce a 2D array of near-field coupled split-ring resonators and optimize its scattering performances with the aid of a genetic algorithm, operating in 19th-dimensional space. Experimental realization of the device is demonstrated to surpass the theoretical single-channel limit by a factor of >2, motivating the development of tighter bounds of scattering performances. A super-radiant criterion is suggested to compare maximal scattering cross-sections versus the single-channel dipolar limit multiplied by the number of elements within the array. This new empirical criterion, which aims on addressing performances of subwavelength arrays formed by near-field coupled elements, was found to be rather accurate in application to the superscatterer, reported here. Furthermore, the super-radiant bound was empirically verified with a Monte-Carlo simulation, collecting statistics on scattering cross sections of a large set of randomly distributed dipoles. The demonstrated flat superscatterer can find use as a passive electromagnetic beacon, making miniature airborne and terrestrial targets to be radar visible., Comment: 20 pages, 6 figures

We study the dispersion of electromagnetic waves in a spatially dispersive metamaterial with Lorentz-like dependence of principal permittivity tensor components on the respective components of the wave vector performing the analysis of isofrequency contours. The considered permittivity tensor describes triple non-connected wire medium. It is demonstrated that the metamaterial has four optic axes in the frequency range below artificial plasma frequency. The directions of the optical axes do not depend on frequency and coincide with the diagonals of quadrants. The metamaterial supports two propagating electromagnetic waves in all directions of space except the directions of axes. The conical refraction effect is observed for all four optic axes both below and above artificial plasma frequency where the metamaterial supports five propagating waves in most of the directions.

Electrically small dielectric antennas are of great interest for modern technologies, since they can significantly reduce the physical size of electronic devices for processing and transmitting information. We investigate the influence of the resonance conditions of an electrically small dielectric spherical antenna with a high refractive index on its directivity and analyze the dependence of these resonances on the effectively excited modes of the dielectric sphere., Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, for the METANANO 2021 VI International Conference on Metamaterials and Nanophotonics (https://metanano.itmo.ru)

One of the most intriguing problems of light transport in solids is the localization that has been observed in various disordered photonic structures1-11. The light localization in defect-free icosahedral quasicrystals has recently been predicted theoretically without experimental verification10. Here we report on the fabrication of submicron-size dielectric icosahedral quasicrystals and demonstrate the results of detailed studies of the photonic properties of these structures. Here, we present the first direct experimental observation of intrinsic light localization in defect-free quasicrystals. This result was obtained in time-resolved measurements at different laser wavelengths in the visible. We linked localization with the aperiodicity of the icosahedral structure, which led to uncompensated scattering of light from an individual structural element over the entire sphere, providing multiple scattering inside the sample and, as a result, the intrinsic localization of light.

Electromagnetic waves in vacuum and most materials have transverse polarization. Longitudinal electromagnetic waves with electric field parallel to wave vector are very rare and appear under special conditions in a limited class of media, for example in plasma. In this work, we study the dispersion properties of an easy-to-manufacture metamaterial consisting of two three-dimensional cubic lattices of connected metallic wires inserted one into another, also known as an interlaced wire medium. It is shown that the metamaterial supports longitudinal waves at extremely wide frequency band from very low frequencies up to the Bragg resonances of the structure. The waves feature unprecedentedly short wavelengths comparable to the period of the material. The revealed effects highlight spatially dispersive response of interlaced wire medium and provide a route toward generating electromagnetic fields with strong spatial variation.

Small form-factor, narrowband, and highly directive antennas are of critical importance in a variety of applications spanning wireless communications, remote sensing, Raman spectroscopy, and single photon emission enhancement. Surprisingly, we show that the classical directivity limit can be appreciably surpassed for electrically small multilayer spherical antennas excited by a point electric dipole even if limiting ourselves to purely dielectric materials. Experimentally feasible designs of superdirective antennas are established by using a stochastic optimization algorithm combined with a rigorous analytic solution.

All-dielectric resonant nanophotonics lies at the heart of modern optics and nanotechnology due to the unique possibilities to control scattering of light from high-index dielectric nanoparticles and metasurfaces. One of the important concepts of dielectric Mie-resonant nanophotonics is associated with the Kerker effect that drives the unidirectional scattering of light from nanoantennas and Huygens' metasurfaces. Here we suggest and demonstrate experimentally a novel effect manifested in the nearly complete simultaneous suppression of both forward and backward scattered fields. This effect is governed by the Fano interference between an electric dipole and off-resonant quadrupoles, providing necessary phases and amplitudes of the scattered fields to achieve the transverse scattering. We extend this concept to dielectric metasurfaces that demonstrate zero reflection with transverse scattering and strong field enhancement for resonant light filtering, nonlinear effects, and sensing.

Advances in the field of plasmonics, that is, nanophotonics based on optical properties of metal nanostructures, paved the way for the development of ultrasensitive biological sensors and other devices whose operating principles are based on localization of an electromagnetic field at the nanometer scale. However, high dissipative losses of metal nanostructures limit their performance in many modern areas, including metasurfaces, metamaterials, and optical interconnections, which required the development of new devices that combine them with high refractive index dielectric nanoparticles. Resulting metal-dielectric (hybrid) nanostructures demonstrated many superior properties from the point of view of practical application, including moderate dissipative losses, resonant optical magnetic response, strong nonlinear optical properties, which made the development in this field the vanguard of the modern light science. This review is devoted to the current state of theoretical and experimental studies of hybrid metal-dielectric nanoantennas and nanostructures based on them, capable of selective scattering light waves, amplifying and transmitting optical signals in the desired direction, controlling the propagation of such signals, and generating optical harmonics., Comment: in russian, Accepted to Physics-Uspekhi (https://ufn.ru/en/). Will be published in English

We design and analyze photo-metamaterials with each meta-atom containing both photodiode and light-emitting diode. Illumination of the photodiode by the light-emitting diode gives rise to an additional optical feedback within each unit cell, which strongly affects resonant properties and nonlinear response of the meta-atom. In particular, we demonstrate that symmetry breaking occurs upon a certain threshold magnitude of the incident wave intensity resulting in an abrupt emergence of second-harmonic generation, which was not originally available, as well as in the reduced third-harmonic signal., Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures

Advanced nanophotonics penetrates into other areas of science and technology, ranging from applied physics to biology and resulting in many fascinating cross-disciplinary applications. It has been recently demonstrated that suitably engineered light-matter interactions at the nanoscale can overcome the limitations of today's terahertz (THz) photoconductive antennas, making them one step closer to many practical implications. Here we push forward this concept by comprehensive numerical optimization and experimental investigation of a log-periodic THz photoconductive antenna coupled to a silver nanoantenna array. We shed light on the operation principles of the resulting hybrid THz antenna, providing an approach to boost its performance. By tailoring the size of silver nanoantennas and the distance between them, we obtain an enhancement of optical-to-THz conversion efficiency 2-fold larger compared with previously reported results, and the strongest enhancement is around 1 THz, a frequency range barely achievable by other compact THz sources. Moreover, we propose a cost-effective fabrication procedure to realize such hybrid THz antennas with optimized plasmonic nanostructures via thermal dewetting process, which does not require any post processing and makes the proposed solution very attractive for applications.

Topological phase transitions in condensed matter systems have shown extremely rich physics, unveiling such exotic states of matter as topological insulators, superconductors and superfluids. Photonic topological systems open a whole new realm of research exhibiting a number of important distinctions from their condensed matter counterparts. Photonic modes can couple to the continuum of free space modes which makes it feasible to control and manipulate scattering properties of the photonic structure via topology. At the same time, the direct connection of scattering and topological properties of the photonic states allows their probing by spectroscopic means via Fano resonances. Here we demonstrate that the radiative coupling of modes supported by an all-dielectric metasurface can be controlled and tuned under topological phase transitions due to band inversion, correspondingly inducing a distinct switching of the quality factors of the resonances associated with the bands. In addition, we develop a technique to retrieve the topological properties of all-dielectric metasurfaces from the measured far-field scattering characteristics. The collected angle-resolved transmission and reflection spectra allow extracting the momentum-dependent frequencies and lifetimes of the photonic modes. This enables retrieval of the effective photonic Hamiltonian, including the effects of a synthetic gauge field, and topological invariants~-- pseudo-spin Chern numbers. Our results thus open a new avenue to design a new class of metasurfaces with unique scattering characteristics controlled via topological effects. This work also demonstrates how topological states of open systems can be explored via far-field measurements., Comment: 17 pages, 3 figures, 1 table

Optical surface waves, highly localized modes bound to the surface of media, enable manipulation of light at nanoscale, thus impacting a wide range of areas in nanoscience. By applying metamaterials, artificially designed optical materials, as contacting media at the interface, we can significantly ameliorate surface wave propagation and even generate new types of waves. Here, we demonstrate that high aspect ratio (1:20) grating structures with plasmonic lamellas in deep nanoscale trenches function as a versatile platform supporting both surface and volume infrared waves. The surface waves exhibit a unique combination of properties, such as directionality, broadband existence (from 4 {\mu}m to at least 14 {\mu}m and beyond) and high localization, making them an attractive tool for effective control of light in an extended range of infrared frequencies., Comment: 19 pages, 4 figures

Besides purely academic interest, giant field enhancement within subwavelength particles at light scattering of a plane electromagnetic wave is important for numerous applications ranging from telecommunications to medicine and biology. In this paper, we experimentally demonstrate the enhancement of the intensity of the magnetic field in a high-index dielectric cylinder at the proximity of the dipolar Mie resonances by more than two orders of magnitude for both the TE and TM polarizations of the incident wave. We present a complete theoretical explanation of the effect and show that the phenomenon is very general - it should be observed for any high-index particles. The results explain the huge enhancement of nonlinear effects observed recently in optics, suggesting a new landscape for all-dielectric nonlinear nanoscale photonics., Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures

The study of invisibility of an infinite dielectric rod with high refractive index is based on the two-dimensional Mie scattering problem, and it suggests strong suppression of scattering due to the Fano interference between spectrally broad nonresonant waves and narrow Mie-resonant modes. However, when the dielectric rod has a finite extension, it becomes a resonator supporting the Fabry-Perot modes which introduce additional scattering and eventually destroy the invisibility. Here we reveal that for shorter rods with modest values of the aspect ratio r/L (where r and L are the radius and length of the rod, respectively), the lowest spectral window of the scattering suppression recovers completely, so that even a finite-size resonator may become invisible. We present a direct experimental verification of the concept of switchable invisibility at microwaves using a cylindrical finite-size resonator with high refractive index., Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures

Various clusters of metallic or dielectric nanoparticles can exhibit sharp Fano resonances originating from at least two modes interference of different spectral width. However, for practical applications such as biosensing or nonlinear nanophotonics, the fine-tuning of the Fano resonances is generally required. Here, we propose and demonstrate a novel type of hybrid oligomers consisting of asymmetric metal-dielectric (Au/Si) nanoparticles with a sharp Fano resonance in visible range, which has a predominantly magnetic origin. We demonstrate both, numerically and experimentally, that such hybrid nanoparticle oligomers allow fine-tuning of the Fano resonance via fs-laser induced melting of Au nanoparticles at the nanometer scale. We show that the Fano resonance wavelength can be changed by fs-laser reshaping very precisely (within 15~nm) being accompanied by a reconfiguration of its profile.

In this Article, we review a novel, rapidly developing field of modern light science named all-dielectric nanophotonics. This branch of nanophotonics is based on the properties of high-index dielectric nanoparticles which allow for controlling both magnetic and electric responses of a nanostructured matter. Here, we discuss optical properties of high-index dielectric nanoparticles, methods of their fabrication, and recent advances in practical applications, including the quantum source emission engineering, Fano resonances in all-dielectric nanoclusters, surface enhanced spectroscopy and sensing, coupled-resonator optical waveguides, metamaterials and metasurfaces, and nonlinear nanophotonics., Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1503.08857

Asymmetric metal-dielectric nanostructures are demonstrated superior optical properties arise from the combination of strong enhancement of their near fields and controllable scattering characteristics which originate from plasmonic and high-index dielectric components. Here, being inspired by the recent experimental work [Dmitry~Zuev, \textit{et al.}, Adv. Mater. \textbf{28}, 3087 (2016)] on a new technique for fabrication of asymmetric hybrid nanoparticles via femtosecond laser melting at the nanoscale, we suggest and study numerically a novel type of hybrid dimer nanoantennas. The nanoantennas consist of asymmetric metal-dielectric (Au/Si) nanoparticles and can allow tuning of the near- and far-field properties via laser melting of the metal part. We demonstrate a modification of scattering properties, near electric field distribution, normalized local density of states, and power patters of radiation of the nanoantennas upon laser reshaping. The parameters used to investigate these effects correspond to experimentally demonstrated values in the recent work.

Photoconductive antennas and photomixers are very promising sources of terahertz radiation that is widely used for spectroscopy, characterisation and imaging of biological objects, deep space studies, scanning of surfaces and detection of potentially hazardous substances. These antennas are compact and allow generation of both ultrabroadband pulse and tunable continuous wave terahertz signal at room temperatures, without a need of high-power optical sources. However, such antennas have relatively low energy conversion efficiency of femtosecond laser pulses or two close pump wavelengths (photomixer) into the pulsed and continuous terahertz radiation, correspondingly. Recently, an approach to solving this problem has been proposed, that involves known methods of nanophotonics applied to terahertz photoconductive antennas and photomixers. This approach comprises the use of optical nanoantennas for enhancing the efficiency of pump laser radiation absorption in the antenna gap, reducing the lifetime of photoexcited carriers, and improving antenna thermal efficiency. This Review is intended to systematise all the results obtained by researchers in this promising field of hybrid optical-to-terahertz photoconductive antennas and photomixers.

Achievement of all-optical ultrafast signal modulation and routing by a low-loss nanodevice is a crucial step towards an ultracompact optical chip with high performance. Here, we propose a specifically designed silicon dimer nanoantenna, which is tunable via photoexcitation of dense electron-hole plasma with ultrafast relaxation rate. Basing on this concept, we demonstrate the effect of beam steering up to 20 degrees via simple variation of incident intensity, being suitable for ultrafast light routing in an optical chip. The effect is demonstrated both in the visible and near-IR spectral regions for silicon and germanium based nanoantennas. We also reveal the effect of electron-hole plasma photoexcitation on local density of states (LDOS) in the dimer gap and find that the orientation averaged LDOS can be altered by 50\%, whereas modification of the projected LDOS can be even more dramatic: almost 500\% for transverse dipole orientation. Moreover, our analytical model sheds light on transient dynamics of the studied nonlinear nanoantennas, yielding all temporal characteristics of the proposed ultrafast nanodevice. The proposed concept paves the ways to creation of low-loss, ultrafast, and compact devices for optical signal modulation and routing.

Manipulation of radiation is required for enabling a span of electromagnetic applications. Since properties of antennas and scatterers are very sensitive to a surrounding environment, macroscopic artificially created materials are good candidates for shaping their characteristics. In particular, metamaterials enable controlling both dispersion and density of electromagnetic states, available for scattering from an object. As the result, properly designed electromagnetic environment could govern waves' phenomena. Here electromagnetic properties of scattering dipoles, situated inside a wire medium (metamaterial) are analyzed both numerically and experimentally. Impact of the metamaterial geometry, dipole arrangement inside the medium, and frequency of the incident radiation on scattering phenomena was studied. It was shown that the resonance of the dipole hybridizes with Fabry-Perot modes of the metamaterial, giving rise to a complete reshaping of electromagnetic properties. Regimes of controlled scattering suppression and super-scattering were observed. Numerical analysis is in an agreement with experiments, performed at the GHz spectral range. The reported approach to scattering control with metamaterials could be directly mapped into optical and infrared spectral ranges by employing scalability properties of Maxwell's equations.

The Purcell effect is usually described as a modification of the spontaneous decay rate in the presence of a resonator. In plasmonics, this effect is commonly associated with a large local-field enhancement in "hot spots" due to the excitation of surface plasmons. However, high-index dielectric nanostructures, which become the basis of all-dielectric nanophotonics, can not provide high values of the local-field enhancement due to larger radiation losses. Here, we demonstrate how to achieve a strong Purcell effect in all-dielectric nanostructures, and show theoretically that the Purcell factor can be increased by two orders of magnitude in a finite chain of silicon nanoparticles. Using the eigenmode analysis for an infinite chain, we demonstrate that the high Purcell factor regime is associated with a Van Hove singularity. We perform a proof-of-concept experiment for microwave frequencies and observe the 65-fold enhancement of the Purcell factor in a chain of 10 dielectric particles., Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1506.07276

We develop a theory of nonlocal homogenization for metamaterial consisting of parallel metallic wires with dielectric coating. It is demonstrated that manipulation of dielectric contrast between wire dielectric shell and host material results in switching of metamaterial dispersion regime from elliptic to the hyperbolic one, i.e. the topological transition takes place. We confirm our theoretical predictions by full-wave numerical simulations.

Optically generated electron-hole plasma in high-index dielectric nanostructures was demonstrated as a means of tuning of their optical properties. However, until now an ultrafast operation regime of such plasma driven nanostructures has not been attained. Here, we perform pump-probe experiments with resonant silicon nanoparticles and report on dense optical plasma generation near the magnetic dipole resonance with ultrafast (about 2.5 ps) relaxation rate. Basing on experimental results, we develop an analytical model describing transient response of a nanocrystalline silicon nanoparticle to an intense laser pulse and show theoretically that plasma induced optical nonlinearity leads to ultrafast reconfiguration of the scattering power pattern. We demonstrate 100 fs switching to unidirectional scattering regime upon irradiation of the nanoparticle by an intense femtosecond pulse. Our work lays the foundation for developing ultracompact and ultrafast all-optical signal processing devices.

We present a consistent theoretical approach for calculating effective nonlinear susceptibilities of metamaterials taking into account both frequency and spatial dispersion. Employing the discrete dipole model, we demonstrate that effects of spatial dispersion become especially pronounced in the vicinity of effective permittivity resonance where nonlinear susceptibilities reach their maxima. In that case spatial dispersion may enable simultaneous generation of two harmonic signals with the same frequency and polarization but different wave vectors. We also prove that the derived expressions for nonlinear susceptibilities transform into the known form when spatial dispersion effects are negligible. In addition to revealing new physical phenomena, our results provide useful theoretical tools for analysing resonant nonlinear metamaterials.

Enhancement of optical response with high-index dielectric nanoparticles is attributed to the excitation of their Mie-type magnetic and electric resonances. Here we study Raman scattering from crystalline silicon nanoparticles and reveal that magnetic dipole modes have much stronger effect on the scattering than electric modes of the same order. We demonstrate experimentally a 140-fold enhancement of Raman signal from individual silicon spherical nanoparticles at the magnetic dipole resonance. Our results confirm the importance of the optically-induced magnetic response of subwavelength dielectric nanoparticles for enhancing light-matter interactions.

Hybrid nanophotonics based on metal-dielectric nanostructures unifies the advantages of plasmonics and all-dielectric nanophotonics providing strong localization of light, magnetic optical response and specifically designed scattering properties. Here we demonstrate a novel approach for fabrication of ordered hybrid nanostructures via femtosecond laser melting of asymmetrical metal-dielectric (Au-Si) nanoparticles created by lithographical methods. The approach allows selective reshaping of the metal components of the hybrid nanoparticles without affecting dielectric ones. We apply the developed approach for tuning of the hybrid nanostructures scattering properties in the visible range. The experimental results are supported by molecular dynamics simulation and numerical solving of Maxwell equations., Comment: Published in Advanced Materials

Dewetting of thin metal films is one of the most widespread method for functional plasmonic nanostructures fabrication. However, simple thermal-induced dewetting does not allow to control degree of nanostructures order without additional lithographic process steps. Here we propose a novel method for lithography-free and large-scale fabrication of plasmonic nanostructures via controllable femtosecond laser-induced dewetting. The method is based on femtosecond laser surface pattering of a thin film followed by a nanoscale hydrodynamical instability, which is found to be very controllable under specific irradiation conditions. We achieve control over degree of nanostructures order by changing laser irradiation parametrs and film thickness. This allowed us to exploit the method for the broad range of applications: resonant light absorbtion and scattering, sensing, and potential improving of thin-film solar cells., Comment: to be published in Laser and Photonics Reviews. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1505.03041

All-dielectric nanostructures have recently emerged as a promising alternative to plasmonic devices, as they also possess pronounced electric and magnetic resonances and allow effective light manipulation. In this work, we study optical properties of a composite structure that consists of a silicon nanoparticle array (metasurface) and high-index substrate aiming at clarifying the role of substrate on reflective properties of the nanoparticles. We develop a simple semi-analytical model that describes interference of separate contributions from nanoparticle array and the bare substrate to the total reflection. Applying this model, we show that matching the magnitudes and setting the {\pi}-phase difference of the electric and magnetic dipole moments induced in nanoparticles, one can obtain a suppression of reflection from the substrate coated with metasurface. We perform numerical simulations of sphere and disk nanoparticle arrays for different permittivities of the substrate. We find full agreement with the semi-analytical results, which means that the uncoupled-element model adequately describes nanostructure reflective properties, despite the effects of induced bi-anisotropy. The model explains the features of the reflectance spectrum, such as a number of dips and their spectral positions, and show why it may not coincide with the spectral positions of Mie resonances of the single nanoparticles forming the system. We also address practical aspects of the antireflective device engineering: we show that the uncoupled-element model is applicable to the structures on top of silicon substrates, including lithographically defined nanopillars. The reflectance suppression from nanoparticle array on top of the silicon substrate can be achieved in a broad spectral range with disordered nanoparticle array and for a wide range of incidence angles.

Engineering of intensity and direction of radiation from a single quantum emitter by means of structuring of their environment at the nanoscale is at the cornerstone of modern nanophotonics. Recently discovered systems exhibiting spin--orbit coupling of light are of particular interest in this context. In this Letter, we have demonstrated that asymmetrical excitation of a high-index subwavelength dielectric nanoparticle by a point dipole source located in a notch at its surface results in formation of a chiral near field, which is similar to that of a circularly polarized dipole or quadrupole. Using numerical simulations, we have shown that this effect is the result of a higher multipole (quadrupole and octupole) modes excitation within the nanoparticle. We have applied this effect for unidirectional excitation of dielectric waveguide and surface plasmon-polariton modes. We have achieved the value of front--to--back ratio up to 5.5 for dielectric waveguide and to 7.5 for the plasmonic one. Our results are important for the integrated nanophotonics and quantum information processing systems.

We propose a novel approach for efficient tuning of optical properties of a high refractive index subwavelength nanoparticle with a magnetic Mie-type resonance by means of femtosecond laser irradiation. This concept is based on ultrafast photo-injection of dense (>10^20 cm^-3) electron-hole plasma within such nanoparticle, drastically changing its transient dielectric permittivity. This allows to manipulate by both electric and magnetic nanoparticle responses, resulting in dramatic changes of its scattering diagram and scattering cross section. We experimentally demonstrate 20 % tuning of reflectance of a single silicon nanoparticle by femtosecond laser pulses with wavelength in the vicinity of the magnetic dipole resonance. Such single-particle nanodevice enables to design fast and ultracompact optical switchers and modulators., Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1505.05185

We study numerically, analytically and experimentally the resonant transmission of light in a waveguide formed by a periodic array of high-index dielectric nanoparticles with a side-coupled resonator. We demonstrate that a resonator with high enough Q-factor provides the conditions for the Fano-type interference allowing to control the resonant transmission of light. We suggest a practical realization of this resonant effect based on the quadrupole resonance of a dielectric particle and demonstrate it experimentally for ceramic spheres at microwaves.

Photonic crystals and metamaterials represent two seemingly different classes of artificial electromagnetic media but often they are composed of similar structural elements arranged in periodic lattices. The important question is how to distinguish these two types of periodic photonic structures when their parameters, such as dielectric permittivity and lattice spacing, vary continuously. Here, we discuss transitions between photonic crystals and all-dielectric metamaterials and introduce the concept of a phase diagram and an order parameter for such structured materials, based on the physics of Mie and Bragg resonances. We show that a periodic photonic structure transforms into a metamaterial when the Mie gap opens up below the lowest Bragg bandgap where the homogenization approach can be justified and the effective permeability becomes negative. Our theoretical approach is confirmed by detailed microwave experiments for a metacrystal composed of a square lattice of glass tubes filled with heated water. This analysis yields deep insight into the properties of periodic photonic structures, and it also provides a useful tool for designing different classes of electromagnetic materials in a broad range of parameters., Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures

We present a quantum theoretical treatment of light-matter coupling in the system consisting of a quantum dot and a spherical core-shell metal-dielectric multilayer nanoparticle. It is shown that both weak and strong coupling regimes can be realized in the set-up. Specifically, we demonstrate a strong coupling regime between a quantum dot and a nanoparticle, when the quantum dot resonance is tuned to the frequency at which normal component of effective nanoparticle permittivity is crossing zero. Moreover, we demonstrate the regime at which the quantum dot decays much faster than in vacuum (due to the large Purcell factor) and at the same time radiates more power to the far field. This findings pave the way towards more efficient control over radiation properties of quantum emitters., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures

All-dielectric "magnetic light" nanophotonics based on high refractive index nanoparticles allows controlling magnetic component of light at nanoscale without having high dissipative losses. The artificial magnetic optical response of such nanoparticles originates from circular displacement currents excited inside those structures and strongly depends on geometry and dispersion of optical materials. Here a new approach for increasing magnetic response via resonant bianisotropy effect is proposed and analyzed. The key mechanism of enhancement is based on electric-magnetic interaction between two electrically and magnetically resonant nanoparticles of all-dielectric dimer nanoantenna. It was shown that proper geometrical arrangement of the dimer in respect to the incident illumination direction allows flexible control over all vectorial components of magnetic polarizability, tailoring the later in the dynamical range of 100 % and enhancement up to 36 % relative to performances of standalone spherical particles. The proposed approach provides pathways for designs of all-dielectric metamaterials and metasurfaces with strong magnetic response.

The Purcell effect is defined as the modification of spontaneous decay in the presence of a resonator, and in plasmonics it is usually associated with the large local-field enhancement in "hot spots" due to surface plasmon polaritons. Here we propose a novel strategy for enhancing the Purcell effect through engineering the radiation directivity without a strict requirement of the local field enhancement. Employing this approach, we demonstrate how to enhance the Purcell effect by two orders of magnitude in all-dielectric nanostructures recently suggested as building blocks of low-loss nanophotonics and metamaterials. We support our concept by proof-of-principle microwave experiments with arrays of high-index dielectric resonators.

We study optical properties of arrays of ultrathin nanowires by means of the Brillouin scattering of light on magnons. We employ the Stokes/anti-Stokes scattering asymmetry to probe the circular polarization of a local electric field induced inside nanowires by linearly polarized light waves. We observe the anomalous polarization conversion of the opposite sign than that in a bulk medium or thick nanowires with a great enhancement of the degree of circular polarization attributed to an unconventional refraction in the nanowire medium., Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures

We propose a novel concept for efficient dynamic tuning of optical properties of a high refractive index subwavelength nanoparticle with a magnetic Mie-type resonance by means of femtosecond laser radiation. This concept is based on ultrafast generation of electron-hole plasma within such nanoparticle, drastically changing its transient dielectric permittivity. This allows to manipulate by both electric and magnetic nanoparticle responses, resulting in dramatic changes of its extinction cross section and scattering diagram. Specifically, we demonstrate the effect of ultrafast switching-on a Huygens source in the vicinity of the magnetic dipole resonance. This approach enables to design ultrafast and compact optical switchers and modulators based on the "ultrafast magnetic light" concept., Comment: Silicon nanoparticles, femtosecond laser pulses, magnetic light

A novel method for single-step, lithography-free, and large-scale laser writing of nanoparticle-based plasmonic structures has been developed. Changing energy of femtosecond laser pulses and thickness of irradiated gold film it is possible to vary diameter of the gold nanoparticles, while the distance between them can be varied by laser scanning parameters. This method has an advantage over the most previously demonstrated methods in its simplicity and versatility, while the quality of the structures is good enough for many applications. In particular, resonant light absorbtion/scattering and surface-enhanced Raman scattering have been demonstrated on the fabricated nanostructures.

We reveal extraordinary electromagnetic properties for a general class of uniaxially polarizable media. Depending on parameters, such metamaterials may have wide range of nontrivial shapes of isofrequency contours including lemniscate, diamond and multiply connected curves with connectivity number reaching five. The possibility of the dispersion engineering paves a way to more flexible manipulation of electromagnetic waves. Employing first-principle considerations we prove that uniaxially polarizable media should be described in terms of the nonlocal permittivity tensor which by no means can be reduced to local permittivity and permeability even in the long-wavelength limit. We introduce an alternative set of local material parameters including quadrupole susceptibility capable to capture all of the second-order spatial dispersion effects., Comment: submitted to Physical Review Letters; 5 pages, 5 figures

Strong diamagnetic response of wire medium with finite wire radius is reported. Contrary to the previous works where it was assumed that the wire medium exhibits only the electric response, we show that the non-zero magnetic susceptibility has to be taken into account for proper effective medium description of the wire medium. Analytical and numerical results are supported by the experimental measurements.

The radiation dynamics of optical emitters can be manipulated by properly designed material structures providing high local density of photonic states, a phenomenon often referred to as the Purcell effect. Plasmonic nanorod metamaterials with hyperbolic dispersion of electromagnetic modes are believed to deliver a significant Purcell enhancement with both broadband and non-resonant nature. Here, we have investigated finite-size cavities formed by nanorod metamaterials and shown that the main mechanism of the Purcell effect in these hyperbolic resonators originates from the cavity hyperbolic modes, which in a microscopic description stem from the interacting cylindrical surface plasmon modes of the finite number of nanorods forming the cavity. It is found that emitters polarized perpendicular to the nanorods exhibit strong decay rate enhancement, which is predominantly influenced by the rod length. We demonstrate that this enhancement originates from Fabry-Perot modes of the metamaterial cavity. The Purcell factors, delivered by those cavity modes, reach several hundred, which is 4-5 times larger than those emerging at the epsilon near zero transition frequencies. The effect of enhancement is less pronounced for dipoles, polarized along the rods. Furthermore, it was shown that the Purcell factor delivered by Fabry-Perot modes follows the dimension parameters of the array, while the decay rate in the epsilon near-zero regime is almost insensitive to geometry. The presented analysis shows a possibility to engineer emitter properties in the structured metamaterials, addressing their microscopic structure.

We review a new, rapidly developing field of all-dielectric nanophotonics which allows to control both magnetic and electric response of structured matter by engineering the Mie resonances in high-index dielectric nanoparticles. We discuss optical properties of such dielectric nanoparticles, methods of their fabrication, and also recent advances in all-dielectric metadevices including couple-resonator dielectric waveguides, nanoantennas, and metasurfaces.

The Purcell effect - the modification of the spontaneous emission rate in presence of resonant cavities or other resonant objects - is a fundamental effect of quantum electrodynamics. However, a change of the emission rate caused by environment different from free space has a classical counterpart. Not only quantum emitters, but any small antenna tuned to the resonance is an oscillator with radiative losses, and the influence of the environment on its radiation can be understood and measured in terms of the antenna radiation resistance. We present a general approach which is applicable to measurements of the Purcell factor for radio antennas and to calculations of these factors for quantum emitters. Our methodology is suitable for calculation and measurement of both electric and magnetic Purcell factors, it is versatile and applies to various frequency ranges. The approach is illustrated by a general equivalent scheme and allows the Purcell factor to be expressed through the continious radiation of a small antenna in presence of the environment.

Concealing objects by making them invisible to an external electromagnetic probe is coined by the term cloaking. Cloaking devices, having numerous potential applications, are still face challenges in realization, especially in the visible spectral range. In particular, inherent losses and extreme parameters of metamaterials required for the cloak implementation are the limiting factors. Here, we numerically demonstrate nearly perfect suppression of scattering from arbitrary shaped objects in spatially dispersive metamaterial acting as an alignment-free concealing cover. We consider a realization of a metamaterial as a metal-dielectric multilayer and demonstrate suppression of scattering from an arbitrary object in forward and backward directions with perfectly preserved wavefronts and less than 10% absolute intensity change, despite spatial dispersion effects present in the composite metamaterial. Beyond the usual scattering suppression applications, the proposed configuration may serve as a simple realisation of scattering-free detectors and sensors.

We propose a new type of highly efficient Yagi-Uda nanoantenna and introduced a novel concept of superdirective nanoantennas based on silicon nanoparticles. In addition to the electric response, this silicon nanoantennas exhibit very strong magnetic resonances at the nanoscale. Both types of nanoantennas are studied analytically, numerically and experimentally. For superdirective nanoantennas we also predict the effect of the beam steering at the nanoscale characterized by a subwavelength sensitivity of the beam radiation direction to the source position.

We propose a novel approach to facilitate a readout processes of isolated negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers based on the concept of all-dielectric nanoantennas. We reveal that all-dielectric nanoantenna can significantly enhance both the emission rate and emission extraction efficiency of a photoluminescence signal from a single NV center in a diamond nanoparticle placed on a dielectric substrate. We prove that the proposed approach provides high directivity, large Purcell factor, and efficient beam steering, thus allowing an efficient far-field initialization and readout of several NV centers separated by subwavelength distances.