Strong asymmetry of forward scattering effect from dielectric cubic nanoantenna in lossless media

TL;DR

This paper investigates how surrounding media influence the scattering properties of dielectric cubic nanoantennas, revealing a strong asymmetry in forward scattering due to multipole resonances and the Kerker effect, with implications for nanophotonic applications.

Contribution

It demonstrates the significant impact of lossless media on the spectral and scattering behavior of silicon nanoantennas, highlighting broadband forward scattering caused by the Kerker effect.

Findings

Spectral red-shift and broadening of multipole resonances with increasing media index

Broadband forward scattering observed in visible and near-infrared ranges

Media influence crucial for applications in sensing and diagnostics

Abstract

Dielectric photonics platform provides unique possibilities to control light scattering via utilizing high-index dielectric nanoantennas with peculiar optical signatures. Despite the intensively growing field of all-dielectric nanophotonics, it is still unclear how surrounding media affect scattering properties of a nanoantenna with complex multipole response. Here we report on light scattering by a silicon cubic nanoparticles embedded in lossless media, supporting optical resonant response. We show that significant changes in the scattering process are governed by the electro-magnetic multipole resonances which experience spectral red-shift and broadening over the whole visible and near-infrared spectra as the indices of media increase. Most interestingly that the considered nanoantenna exhibits the broadband forward scattering in the visible and near-infrared spectral ranges due to the Kerker-effect in high-index media. The revealed effect of broadband forward scattering is essential for highly demanding applications in which the influence of the media is crucial such as health-care: sensing, treatment efficiency monitoring, and diagnostics. In addition, the insights from this study are expected to pave the way towards engineering the nanophotonic systems including but not limited to Huygens-metasurfaces in media within a single framework.