Highly Directive Hybrid Metal-Dielectric Yagi-Uda Nanoantennas

A hybrid metal-dielectric nanoantenna promises to harness the large Purcell factor of metallic nanostructures while taking advantage of the high scattering directivity and low dissipative losses of dielectric nanostructures. Here, we investigate a compact hybrid metal-dielectric nanoantenna that is inspired by the Yagi-Uda design. It comprises a metallic gold bowtie nanoantenna feed element and three silicon nanorod directors, exhibiting high unidirectional in-plane directivity and potential beam redirection capability in the visible spectral range. The entire device has a footprint of only 0.38 lambda(2), and its forward directivity is robust against fabrication imperfections. We use the photoluminescence from the gold bowtie nanoantenna itself as an elegant emitter to characterize the directivity of the device and experimentally demonstrate a directivity of similar to 49.2. In addition, we demonstrate beam redirection with our device, achieving a 5 degrees rotation of the main emission lobe with a feed element displacement of only 16 nm. These results are promising for various applications, including on-chip wireless communications, quantum computing, display technologies, and nanoscale alignment.