Coherent control of nanoscale light localization in metamaterial: creating and positioning a sub-wavelength energy hot-spot

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how to use coherent light and metamaterials to create and control sub-wavelength energy hot-spots, enabling precise nanoscale light localization for advanced nanophotonics applications.

Contribution

It introduces a method for manipulating optical fields at the nanoscale using optically-induced interactions in metamaterials with tailored phase profiles.

Findings

Sub-wavelength hot-spots as small as λ/10 created.

Hot-spots can be precisely positioned on the metamaterial.

Method enables new data storage and imaging capabilities.

Abstract

Precise control and manipulation of optical fields on a nanoscale is one of the most important and challenging problems in "nanophotonics". Since optical wavelength is on a much larger microscale, it is impossible to employ conventional focusing for that purpose. We show the strong optically-induced interactions between discrete meta-molecules in a metamaterial system and coherent monochromatic continuous light beam with a spatially-tailored phase profile can be used to prepare a sub-wavelength scale energy localization. Well isolated energy hot-spots as small as $\lambda/10$ can be created and positioned at will on the metamaterial landscape offering new opportunities for data storage and imaging applications.