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The creation of single photon sources on a chip is a mid-term milestone on the road to chip-scale quantum computing. An in-depth understanding of the extended multipole decomposition of non-isolated sources of electromagnetic radiation is not only relevant for a microscopic description of fundamental phenomena, such as light propagation in a medium, but also for emerging applications such as single-photon sources. To design single photon emitters on a chip, we consider a ridge dielectric waveguide perturbed with a cylindrical inclusion. For this, we expanded classical multipole decomposition that allows simplifying and interpreting complex optical interactions in an intuitive manner to make it suitable for analyzing light-matter interactions with non-isolated objects that are parts of a larger network, e.g. individual components such as a single photon source of an optical chip. It is shown that our formalism can be used to design single photon sources on a chip.

We introduce a non-intrusive far-field optical microscopy, which reveals the fine structure of an object through its far-field scattering pattern under illumination with topologically structured light containing deeply subwavelength singularity features. The object is reconstructed by a neural network trained on a large number of scattering events. We demonstrate resolving powers two orders of magnitude beyond the conventional “diffraction limit” of λ/2.

High-index dielectric materials are in great demand for nanophotonic devices and applications, from ultrathin optical elements to metal-free sub-diffraction light confinement and waveguiding. Here we show that chalcogenide topological insulators are particularly apt candidates for dielectric nanophotonic architectures in the infrared spectral range by reporting metamaterial resonances in chalcogenide crystals sustained well inside the mid-infrared, choosing Bi$_2$Te$_3$ as case study within this family of materials. Strong resonant modulation of the incident electromagnetic field is achieved thanks to the exceptionally high refractive index ranging between 7 and 8 throughout the 2-10 $\mu$m region. Analysis of the complex mode structure in the metamaterial allude to the excitation of poloidal surface currents which could open pathways for enhanced light-matter interaction and low-loss plasmonic configurations by coupling to the spin-polarized topological surface carriers, thereby providing new opportunities to combine dielectric, plasmonic and magnetic metamaterials in a single platform., Comment: 21 pages, 6 figures

We introduce a new far-field and label-free imaging paradigm based on combining singularity illumination with artificial-intelligence enabling reconstruction of an object from the scattered light. We demonstrate imaging resolution beyond X/100.

A nonintrusive far‐field optical microscopy resolving structures at the nanometer scale would revolutionize biomedicine and nanotechnology but is not yet available. Here, a new type of microscopy is introduced, which reveals the fine structure of an object through its far‐field scattering pattern under illumination with light containing deeply subwavelength singularity features. The object is reconstructed by a neural network trained on a large number of scattering events. In numerical experiments on imaging of a dimer, resolving powers better than λ/200, i.e., two orders of magnitude beyond the conventional “diffraction limit” of λ/2, are demonstrated. It is shown that imaging is tolerant to noise and is achievable with low dynamic range light intensity detectors. Proof‐of‐principle experimental confirmation of DSTM is provided with a training set of small size, yet sufficient to achieve resolution five‐fold better than the diffraction limit. In principle, deep learning reconstruction can be extended to objects of random shape and shall be particularly efficient in microscopy of a priori known shapes, such as those found in routine tasks of machine vision, smart manufacturing, and particle counting for life sciences applications., Nonintrusive, label‐free, far‐field optical microscopy is introduced based on illumination of an object with topologically structured light that contains multiple deeply subwavelength singularity features. This new type of optical microscopy allows to resolve the fine structure of an object with resolution that can exceed the conventional diffraction limit by two orders of magnitude.

We demonstrate second harmonic generation by using an amorphous silicon metamaterial fabricated on the tip of an optical fiber that collects the generated light. The metamaterial is a double-chevron array that supports a closed-mode resonance for the fundamental wavelength at 1510 nm with a quality factor of 30. The normalized resonant second harmonic conversion efficiency calculated per intensity and square of interaction length is ∼10 −11 W −1, which exceeds the previously achieved value for a silicon metamaterial by two orders of magnitude.

We show how structuring of matter can lead to second order optical nonlinearity. Coulomb interactions involving bound electrons cause a nonlinear optical response at boundaries. We demonstrate that second order nonlinearity is proportional to the perimeter of a planar structure cut from a centrosymmetric lattice of harmonic oscillators. This proportionality and our model can instruct the design of dielectric nonlinear particles, surfaces and metamaterials for optical second harmonic generation.

The mechanism of Cooper pair formation and its underlying physics has long occupied the investigation into high temperature (high-Tc ) cuprate superconductors. One of the ways to unravel this is to observe the ultrafast response present in the charge carrier dynamics of a photoexcited specimen. This results in an interesting approach to exploit the dissipation-less dynamic features of superconductors to be utilized for designing high-performance active subwavelength photonic devices with extremely low-loss operation. Here, dual-channel, ultrafast, all-optical switching and modulation between the resistive and the superconducting quantum mechanical phase is experimentally demonstrated. The ultrafast phase switching is demonstrated via modulation of sharp Fano resonance of a high-Tc yttrium barium copper oxide (YBCO) superconducting metamaterial device. Upon photoexcitation by femtosecond light pulses, the ultrasensitive cuprate superconductor undergoes dual dissociation-relaxation dynamics, with restoration of superconductivity within a cycle, and thereby establishes the existence of dual switching windows within a timescale of 80 ps. Pathways are explored to engineer the secondary dissociation channel which provides unprecedented control over the switching speed. Most importantly, the results envision new ways to accomplish low-loss, ultrafast, and ultrasensitive dual-channel switching applications that are inaccessible through conventional metallic and dielectric based metamaterials. NRF (Natl Research Foundation, S’pore) MOE (Min. of Education, S’pore) Accepted version

Plasmonics is a rapidly developing field at the boundary of physical optics and condensed matter physics. It studies phenomena induced by and associated with surface plasmons - elementary polar excitations bound to surfaces and interfaces of good nanostructured metals. This Roadmap is written collectively by prominent researchers in the field of plasmonics. It encompasses selected aspects of nanoplasmonics. Among them are fundamental aspects, such as quantum plasmonics based on the quantum-mechanical properties of both the underlying materials and the plasmons themselves (such as their quantum generator, spaser), plasmonics in novel materials, ultrafast (attosecond) nanoplasmonics, etc. Selected applications of nanoplasmonics are also reflected in this Roadmap, in particular, plasmonic waveguiding, practical applications of plasmonics enabled by novel materials, thermo-plasmonics, plasmonic-induced photochemistry and photo-catalysis. This Roadmap is a concise but authoritative overview of modern plasmonics. It will be of interest to a wide audience of both fundamental physicists and chemists, as well as applied scientists and engineers., J Schötz for financial support by the European Union via the ERC grant ATTOCO, by the DFG via SPP1840.

Multi-photon absorption processes have a nonlinear dependence on the amplitude of the incident optical field i.e. the number of photons. However, multi-photon absorption is generally weak and multi-photon events occur with extremely low probability. Consequently, it is extremely challenging to engineer quantum nonlinear devices that operate at the single photon level and the majority of quantum technologies have to rely on single photon interactions. Here, we demonstrate experimentally and theoretically that exploiting coherent absorption of N = 2 N00N states makes it possible to enhance the number of two-photon states that are absorbed. An absorbing metasurface placed inside a Sagnac-style interferometer into which we inject an N = 2 N00N state, exhibits two-photon absorption with 40.5% efficiency, close to the theoretical maximum. This high probability of simultaneous absorption of two photons holds the promise for applications in fields that require multi-photon upconversion but are hindered by high peak intensities., 13 page, 5 figures

We report on approaches to the integration of metasurfaces and active metadevices with optical fiber platforms, including all-optical and electro-optic nano-mechanical switching devices, dispersion control solutions and coherent absorption modulators.

The toroidal dipole moments of natural molecules are hard to be detected so the artificial toroidal materials made by metamaterial attract more attentions. Metamaterial, the sub-wavelength artificial structures, can modulate reflection or transmission of light. The toroidal metamaterial can not only amplify the toroidal moment but also repress the electric and magnetic dipole so it can be used to study the properties of toroidal dipole moment. However, there are many limitations for the experiments, such as the lateral light is necessary to excite the toroidal response. Most of the toroidal dipole moments oscillate perpendicularly to the substrate, therefore it is difficult to couple it with other dipole moments and could be only excited in the microwave region. In this paper, we design a toroidal metamaterial consisting of dumbbell-shaped aperture and vertical split ring resonator (VSRR) vertically. The toroidal dipole moment of our metamaterial is excited in the optical region. The arrangement of our nanostructures is vertical instead of planar annular arrangement to reduce the size of the unit cell and increase the density of the toroidal dipole moment. Moreover, the direction of toroidal dipole moment is parallel to the substrate which can be used for the study of the coupling effect with other kinds of dipolar moments.

Toroidal multipoles, which along with the familiar electric and magnetic multipoles is necessary for the complete multipole representation of an arbitrary radiating source. We have designed a planar metasurface with resonant response in the terahertz range, which is easy to fabricate and exhibits the signature of a toroidal excitation.

A toroidal dipole in metasurfaces provides an alternate approach for the excitation of high-Q resonances. In contrast to conventional multipoles, the toroidal dipole interaction strength depends on the time derivative of the surrounding electric field. A characteristic feature of toroidal dipoles is tightly confined loops of oscillating magnetic field that curl around the fictitious arrow of the toroidal dipole vector.

Toroidal dipole moments, the third kind of fundamental dipole moment, have unusual electromagnetic properties different from the electric and magnetic multipoles. We fabricate a new type of 3D plasmonic toroidal metamaterial by using mutual coupling between dumbbell-shaped gold apertures with vertical split-ring resonators (VSRRs) at optical frequency. The radiated power of multipole moments are calculated and analyzed to improve the meta-system is dominated by the toroidal dipole moment. This result paves a way for practical application on metamaterial based devices, such as biosensor and lasing spaser.

Bragg gratings fabricated along the mode propagation direction in optical fibers are a powerful technology for controlling dispersion. Here, we show that a dielectric metamaterial grating with sub-wavelength period fabricated in the thin layer of silicon on the fiber facet exhibits transmission resonance with the quality factor exceeding 300. We demonstrate how focused ion beam patterning, commonly expected to degrade the optical performance of materials, can be exploited to create low-loss photonic nanostructures on the fiber facet. Only a few tens of nanometers in thickness, such facet gratings can be used in compact interconnects, dispersion compensation, and sensing applications. MOE (Min. of Education, S’pore) Published version

Split ring resonator (SRR) has attracted wide attentions since the discovery of negative refraction in 2002. Here, we designed and fabricated vertical SRR (VSRR) arrays and toroidal metamolecule by using double exposure e-beam lithography with precise alignment technique, and their resonance behaviors are subsequently studied in optical region. The fundamental resonance properties of VSRR are studied as well as the plasmon coupling in a VSRR dimer structure by changing the gap distance between SRRs. In addition, we proposed a three-dimensional toroidal structure composed a VSRR with a dumbbell structure that supported a toroidal resonance under normal incidence with broadband working frequency. Such toroidal metamaterial confines effectively the electric as well as magnetic energy paving a way for promising applications in the field of plasmonics, such as integrated 3D plasmonic metamaterials, plasmonic biosensor and lasing spaser.

We present a superconducting metamaterial with ultra-strong nonlinear response in the sub-terahertz range. A change in transmission of more than 10% has been achieved by ramping up the radiation intensity from 100μW/cm2 to just 800μW/cm2.

Summary form only given. The ability of metamaterials to concentrate energy of the incident radiation on the sub-wavelength scale has long been predicted to lead to new device applications with a significantly improved and even superior functionality; the concrete implementations are, however, only beginning to emerge. Here we show how combining the concept of a superconducting bolometer with the coherent metamaterial paradigm allows to create a very sensitive sub-THz radiation detector with high spectral selectivity of ν0/Δν ~ 90.Figure 1a illustrates the solution. Our bolometer is based on asymmetrically-split-ring (ASR) metamaterial with a characteristic narrow BIT-like resonance which is extremely sensitive to Joule losses. It also belongs to a novel, special class of coherent metamaterials, where the resonant response results from the collective excitation of the entire metamaterial array underpinned by strong interactions between its metamolecules. The metamaterial design features an additional `signal line' that electrically connects all metamolecules into a single network. We manufacture the metamaterial by patterning the thin niobium film on the sapphire substrate with standard UVphotolithography. The measurements are conducted by placing the metamaterial into the optical cryostat and cooling it down to temperature 5K. At such temperatures the niobium becomes superconducting which results in a sharp, low-loss metamaterial response in the sub-THz range (see Fig. 1b). We apply the bias of Vb = 4V (see Fig. 1a) to create a small hotspot within the metamaterial array (- 5% of the total area) where niobium is just below the superconducting transition point and is therefore very sensitive to Joule heating caused by the incident radiation. Strong interactions between the metamolecules that are typical to ASR metamaterial at its coherent resonance lead to channelling of radiation energy from the outer regions of the metamaterial into the hotspot, thus allowing to combine the narrow spectral response with the extreme sensitivity, resulting in the overall very efficient radiation-detecting device.

We show that subterahertz transmission of the superconducting metamaterial, an interlinked two-dimensional network of subwavelength resonators connected by a continuous superconducting wire loop, can be dynamically modulated by passing electrical current through it. We have identified the main mechanisms of modulation that correspond to the suppression of the superconductivity in the network by magnetic field and heat dissipation. Using the metamaterial fabricated from thin niobium film, we were able to demonstrate a transmission modulation depth of up to 45% and a bandwidth of at least 100 kHz. The demonstrated approach may be implemented with other superconducting materials at frequencies below the superconducting gap in the THz and subterahertz bands. Published version

Nonlinear and switchable metamaterials achieved by artificial structuring on the subwavelength scale have become a central topic in photonics research. Switching with only a few quanta of excitation per metamolecule, metamaterial's elementary building block, is the ultimate goal, achieving which will open new opportunities for energy efficient signal handling and quantum information processing. Recently, arrays of Josephson junction devices have been proposed as a possible solution. However, they require extremely high levels of nanofabrication. Here we introduce a new quantum superconducting metamaterial which exploits the magnetic flux quantization for switching. It does not contain Josephson junctions, making it simple to fabricate and scale into large arrays. The metamaterial was manufactured from a high-temperature superconductor and characterized in the low intensity regime, providing the first observation of the quantum phenomenon of flux exclusion affecting the far-field electromagnetic properties of the metamaterial.

Simulations of differentially oriented split-ring resonator arrays irradiated by visible light indicate induction of magnetic multipoles, opening up new avenues for high-capacity data storage.

The toroidal spectral responses of toroidal metamolecule integrated by four gold U-shaped SRRs at optical frequencies are numerically studied. Downsizing the structure achieve observation of a plasmonic toroidal mode at optical frequencies.

We show that chalcogenide topological insulators have exceptionally high infrared refractive indices, enabling metamaterials with complex mode structures that could open up pathways to combine dielectric, plasmonic and magnetic metamaterials in a single platform.

By immersing metamaterial nanostructures into liquids with different refractive indices, we obtain valuable information on role of different multipoles in their electromagnetic response. Applications to detection of anapole modes are discussed.

Multiple photon absorption processes typically have a nonlinear dependence on the amplitude of the incident optical field. On the other hand, quantum technologies rely on single photon events. It has therefore been of great technical difficulty to achieve nonlinear devices using single photons. This is due to the small cross-section of absorption in room temperature devices, with multi-photon absorption events occurring with extremely low probability. The lack of access to nonlinear processes severely inhibits the use of optics for a large number of applications surrounding quantum technologies. We demonstrate experimentally that by exploiting a coherent absorption mechanism for N=2 N00N states, outlined theoretically by Jeffers in 2000 [1] and experimentally explored by Roger et. al. in 2016 [2], that it is possible to determine and enhance the number of two photon states that are absorbed. Here a 50% absorbing metasurface is placed inside a Sagnac interferometer into which we inject a N00N state. We show that by tuning the phase φ of the input state, |2,0〉 + exp(−ί2φ) |0,2〉, we can selectively tune the output state. For an input phase of φ = π/2 or 3π/2 we find that a single photon is absorbed with 100% probability. However, when we tune the input phase to φ = 0 or π we see that either 0 or 2 photons are absorbed with equal probability. We have developed a theoretical model that, with no free parameters, fits the experimentally measured two-photon contribution and finds the maximum contribution of |0,0) (0,0| to the output state to be 40.5%.

Toroidal multipoles are the subject of growing interest because of their unusual electromagnetic properties different from the electric and magnetic multipoles. In this paper, we present two new related classes of plasmonic metamaterial composed of purposely arranged of four U-shaped split ring resonators (SRRs) that show profound resonant toroidal responses at optical frequencies. The toroidal and magnetic responses were investigated by the finite-element simulations. A phenomenon of reversed toroidal responses at higher and lower resonant frequencies has also been reported between this two related metamaterials which results from the electric and magnetic dipoles interaction. Finally, we propose a physical model based on coupled LC circuits to quantitatively analyze the coupled system of the plasmonic toroidal metamaterials.

We present the first design of a photonic metamaterial demonstrating dominant toroidal dipolar response in the infrared part of the spectrum.