4.6 Article

High-Quality Optical Hotspots with Topology-Protected Robustness

Journal

ACS PHOTONICS
Volume 9, Issue 1, Pages 241-248

Publisher

AMER CHEMICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1021/acsphotonics.1c01445

Keywords

hotspots; topological photonics; disorder; dielectric resonators

Funding

  1. Humboldt Research Fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
  2. Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany's Excellence Strategy [EXC 2089/1-390776260]
  3. Lee-Lucas Chair in Physics
  4. Solar Energies go Hybrid (SolTech) program

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The article introduces a method of forming hotspots using the concept of topological photonics, generating light hotspots on the surface of nanostructures through topological edge states and topological corner states, improving both the quality factor and light intensity, and showing good robustness to fabrication imperfections.
Optical hotspots underpin a wide variety of photonic devices ranging from sensing, nonlinear generation to photocatalysis, taking advantage of the strong light-matter interaction at the vicinity of photonic nanostructures. While plasmonic nanostructures have been widely used for strongly localized electromagnetic energy on surfaces, they suffer from high loss and consequently a low quality factor. Resonance-based dielectric structures provide an alternative solution with a larger quality factor, but there is a mismatch between the maximum values of the light confinement (quality factor) and the leakage (intensity in the near-field). Here, we propose to apply the concept of topological photonics to the formation of hotspots, producing them in both topological edge states and topological corner states. The topology secures strong light localization at the surface of the nanostructures where the underlying topological invariant shows a jump, generating a field hotspot with simultaneous increment of quality factor and light intensity. Meanwhile, it leverages a good robustness to fabrication imperfection including fluctuation in shape and misalignment. After a systematic investigation and comparison of the robustness between 1D and 2D topological structures, we conclude that the hotspots from 1D topological edge states promise a fertile playground for emerging applications that require both enhanced light intensity and high spectral resolution.

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