Optically-Induced Magnetic Response in All-Dielectric Nanodisk Composite Structures

Abstract

Optical technologies developed throughout history have been exploiting the electric response in matters in order to control light. However, little has been explored for the magnetic response in matter at optical frequencies due to the lack of magnetic materials in this spectral region. Recently, specially engineered materials, namely metamaterials, have been developed to exploit the magnetic responses in matter for light manipulation. In particular, researchers have made use of the optically-induced magnetic responses (OIMRs) generated in metallic nanostructures to achieve optical effects not seen in nature. Such magnetic responses serve as a second channel to control light, providing an alternative and an addition to the electric responses and leading to novel observations and innovative ideas for light manipulation. This creates many opportunities for the development of the next generation nano-optics and nanophotonic devices.

Dielectric nanostructures have recently been discovered to also support OIMR, which is useful for applications requiring low loss and simpler fabrication procedures, such as wavefront control and robust nanoscale sensing. In this thesis, I present the study of OIMR in several all-dielectric systems based on silicon nanodisks, namely single, clusters and regular arrays of nanodisks. The study of these systems provides knowledge for and insight into harnessing the OIMRs in dielectric nanostructures for future applications.

Chapter 1 provides a comprehensive introduction to OIMR by presenting a historic overview of the topic and the basic concepts involved for high-index dielectric particles. This is followed by a description of the pioneer works on OIMR in dielectric spherical nanoparticles, including the Mie theory and its recent experimental verification. The similarities and differences between the properties of plasmonic and dielectric nanostructures in the context of metamaterials are also described and explained. Finally, the motivation and scope of the thesis is summarized.

Chapter 2 describes the experimental methods used that are common to all works presented in this thesis, including the fabrication of silicon nanodisk structures and the linear optical characterization techniques.

Chapter 3 presents the fundamental of OIMR in single silicon nanodisk structures, including a theoretical analysis and experimental observation of various resonant modes of single silicon nanodisks, as well as the numerical and experimental results of the Fano resonances observed in the more complex structures of single heptamer oligomers.

Chapter 4 focuses on manipulating the OIMR in combination with the electric response to create Huygens' metasurfaces based on silicon nanodisk arrays. Two highly-efficient functional metadevices with polarization independence based on the Huygens' metasurface system are presented, namely a Gaussian-to-vortex beam shaper and a holographic phase plate.

Chapter 5 explores the cross-disciplinary area of sensing using silicon nanodisk arrays with OIMRs, including refractive index sensing using Fano resonances and biosensing using the dipolar magnetic resonances where a new detection limit for the Streptavidin protein was achieved.

Chatper 6 concludes the thesis and provides an outlook to the research works that can be extended from the results in this thesis. Show more