Many-body subradiant excitations in metamaterial arrays: Experiment and theory

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the creation and observation of large-scale many-body subradiant states in metamaterial arrays, combining experimental and theoretical approaches to explore their properties at microwave and optical frequencies.

Contribution

It introduces the first large-scale experimental realization of spatially extended many-body subradiance in metamaterials, supported by numerical simulations and theoretical analysis.

Findings

Over 1000 metamolecules exhibit subradiant eigenmodes.

Experimental and simulation results agree on the existence of multimetamolecule subradiant states.

Subradiance persists at optical frequencies in plasmonic metamaterials.

Abstract

Subradiant excitations, originally predicted by Dicke, have posed a long-standing challenge in physics owing to their weak radiative coupling to environment. Here we engineer massive subradiance in planar metamaterial arrays as a spatially extended eigenmode comprising over 1000 metamolecules. By comparing the near- and far-field response in large-scale numerical simulations with those in experimental observations we identify correlated multimetamolecule subradiant states that dominate the total excitation energy. We show that spatially extended many-body subradiance can also exist in plasmonic metamaterial arrays at optical frequencies.