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Supplementary material on methods and analysis

Supplement 1

Supplementary Materials on methods

supplemental document

Supplementary Information

Dewetted, SiGe nanoparticles have been successfully exploited for light management in the visible and near-infrared, although their scattering properties have been so far only qualitatively studied. Here, we demonstrate that the Mie resonances sustained by a SiGe-based nanoantenna under tilted illumination, can generate radiation patterns in different directions. We introduce a novel dark-field microscopy setup that exploits the movement of the nanoantenna under the objective lens to spectrally isolate Mie resonances contribution to the total scattering cross-section during the same measurement. The knowledge of islands’ aspect ratio is then benchmarked by 3D, anisotropic phase-field simulations and contributes to a correct interpretation of the experimental data.

We study optical second harmonic generation from metallic dipole antennas with narrow gaps. Enhancement of the fundamental-frequency field in the gap region plays a marginal role on conversion efficiency. In the symmetric configuration, i.e., with the gap located at the center of the antenna axis, reducing gap size induces a significant red-shift of the maximum conversion efficiency peak. Either enhancement or inhibition of second-harmonic emission may be observed as gap size is decreased, depending on the antenna mode excited at the harmonic frequency. The second-harmonic signal is extremely sensitive to the asymmetry introduced by gap’s displacements with respect to the antenna center. In this situation, second-harmonic light can couple to all the available antenna modes. We perform a multipolar analysis that allows engineering the far-field SH emission and find that the interaction with quasi-odd-symmetry modes generates radiation patterns with a strong dipolar component.

We investigate local field enhancement phenomena in subwavelength, ��-near-zero (ENZ) slabs that do not exploit Fabry-P��rot resonances. In particular, we study the linear response of engineered metamaterial slabs of finite thickness based on plasmonic nanoshells that show an ENZ band in the visible range, and naturally occurring materials (e.g., SiO2) that also display ENZ properties, under oblique, TM-polarized plane wave incidence. We then introduce active gain material in engineered metamaterial slabs that adds peculiar spectral and angular features to transmission, reflection, and absorption properties, and leads to a further local field enhancement. These findings are supported by two theoretical studies: First, a simple interface between two semi-infinite media, namely free space and a generic ENZ medium; then, an ENZ slab of finite thickness, with the aim of understanding the system's behavior when varying the ENZ properties as well as the incident angle. For either case we report three distinct physical conditions for which we explain spectral and angular features that might result in strong field enhancement. The gain-assisted metamaterial implementation has the potential of triggering and enhancing low-threshold nonlinear phenomena thanks to the large local fields found at specific frequency and angular bands.

A variable energy (3-7 MeV) and pulsed current (0.1 – 100 μA) proton beam has been made available for different applications (radiobiology experiments, detectors development, material studies) in an irradiation facility at ENEA-Frascati based on the 7 MeV injector of the protontherapy linac under realization in the framework of the TOP-IMPLART Project. It is a 425 MHz linear accelerator consisting in a 3 MeV RFQ followed by a DTL up to 7 MeV (PL-7 ACCSYS-HITACHI model) followed by an horizontal and a vertical beam transport line. The latter one is particularly suitable for radiobiology in vitro studies allowing to irradiate besides cell monolayes also cell growing in suspension culture. The paper describes the facility and the recent results of the experimental activity., Proceedings of the 5th Int. Particle Accelerator Conf., IPAC2014, Dresden, Germany