Tailored Light Scattering through Hyperuniform Disorder in self-organized arrays of high-index Nanodisks

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that hyperuniform disorder in self-organized nanodisk arrays allows for tailored light scattering by combining effects of structure and form factor, opening new avenues for optical material design.

Contribution

It introduces the first experimental realization of hyperuniform disorder in nanodisk arrays and shows how it enables control over light scattering beyond traditional ordered or random structures.

Findings

Hyperuniform nanodisk arrays influence light scattering uniquely.

Both structure factor and form factor impact scattering in hyperuniform arrays.

Potential applications in advanced optical materials.

Abstract

Arrays of nanoparticles exploited in light scattering applications commonly only feature either a periodic or a rather random arrangement of its constituents. For the periodic case, light scattering is mostly governed by the strong spatial correlations of the arrangement, expressed by the structure factor. For the random case, structural correlations cancel each other out and light scattering is mostly governed by the scattering properties of the individual scatterer, expressed by the form factor. In contrast to these extreme cases, we show here, for the first time, that hyperuniform disorder in self-organized large-area arrays of high refractive index nanodisks enables both structure and form factor to impact the resulting scattering pattern, offering novel means to tailor light scattering. The scattering response from our nearly hyperuniform interfaces can be exploited in a large variety of applications and constitutes a novel class of advanced optical materials.