Anisotropic virtual gain and large tuning of particles’ scattering by complex-frequency excitations

Active tuning of the scattering of particles and metasurfaces is a highly sought-after property for a host of electromagnetic and photonic applications, but it normally requires challenging-to-control tunable (reconfigurable) or active (gain) media. Here, we introduce the concepts of anisotropic virtual gain and oblique Kerker effect, where a completely lossy anisotropic medium behaves exactly as its anisotropic gain counterpart upon excitation by a synthetic complex-frequency wave. The strategy allows one to largely tune the magnitude and angle of a particle’s scattering simply by changing the shape (envelope) of the incoming radiation, rather than by an involved medium-tuning mechanism. The so-attained anisotropic virtual gain enables directional super-scattering at an oblique direction with fine-management of the scattering angle. Our study is based on analytical techniques that allow multipolar decomposition of the scattered field in agreement with full-wave simulations, and lays the foundations for a light management method. The authors show how the use of suitable time-domain pulses, characterized by a complex frequency, can turn anisotropic losses to anisotropic virtual gain in small particles. These excitations can largely tune the scattering off particles without requiring any other tuning mechanism.