Engineering Hybrid Resonances in Nanophotonics

TL;DR

This paper reviews the development of hybrid plasmonic-Mie resonators in nanophotonics, highlighting their physical principles, design strategies, and applications, including recent advances with epsilon-near-zero materials and topological systems.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of hybrid resonator design, physical mechanisms, and emerging materials, offering insights into future research directions in nanophotonics.

Findings

Hybrid plasmonic-Mie resonators enhance light-matter interactions.

Epsilon-near-zero materials offer unique advantages in field localization.

Potential for integrating topological materials in nanophotonic devices.

Abstract

Hybridization of resonances is known to overcome inherent limitations of individual systems, enabling advanced functionalities and applications. Here we discuss hybrid plasmonic-Mie resonators that emerged recently as a promising direction in advancing nanophotonic structures by synergistically combining the strong near-field enhancement of plasmonic components with the low-loss, multipolar resonances of dielectric Mie elements. We review the recent progress in the field, encompassing the fundamental physical principles, structural design strategies, material platforms, computational optimization approaches, and representative device implementations. Our discussion starts by evaluating the complementary characteristics of plasmonic and Mie resonances followed by a description of the coupling between these resonances in order to boost light-matter interactions. Afterward, we explore the performance of efficient hybrid resonators for different application areas. Apart from the conventional metal-dielectric systems, we consider the recent class of epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) materials, which can provide unique advantages in terms of field localization, phase engineering, and energy flow management in the vicinity of zero-permittivity conditions, offering more flexibility in designing hybrid nano-optical devices. Lastly, we point out potential research avenues aiming to improve functional and efficient nanophotonic devices, especially those involving emerging topological material systems, such as Sb2Te3, Bi2Te3, Bi2Se3, combining plasmonic amplification, dielectric confinement, and spin-dependent optical behavior.