How many supercells are required to achieve unconventional light confinement effects in moir\'e photonic lattices?

TL;DR

This paper investigates how many supercells are needed in moiré photonic lattices to achieve strong light confinement effects, revealing that coupling cancellation at the magic configuration in structures with three or more supercells leads to highly confined, low-loss optical modes.

Contribution

It demonstrates that coupling cancellation at the magic configuration in finite moiré structures with three or more supercells enables ultra-confined, high-Q optical modes with negligible losses.

Findings

Single-supercell cavities do not show confinement effects at the flat band wavelength.

Coupling cancellation occurs in structures with three or more supercells at the magic configuration.

Highly confined modes with Q > 10^6 are achieved with destructive interference.

Abstract

Moir\'e structures are receiving increasing attention in nanophotonics as they support intriguing optical phenomena. In the so-called "magic configuration", one-dimensional moir\'es give rise to fully dispersionless energy bands known as "flatbands", where the light is tightly localized within each supercell of the periodic moir\'e. The goal of this investigation is to determine to what extent the confinement of light, observed in periodic structures, is preserved in microcavities of finite size. Here we analyze the optical response of finite moir\'e structures consisting of one, two, or more supercells of 1D moir\'e. Our calculations reveal that for single-supercell cavity, the magic configuration does not impact the electric field confinement at the wavelength of the flat band modes. However, when three or more supercells are connected, we show that the coupling between supercells is canceled at the "magic configuration", resulting in highly confined modes with a quality factor greater than $10^6$ and exhibiting the characteristics of a quasi-bound state in the continuum where optical losses are eliminated through a destructive interference process.