Sensing the polarization of visible light with optimized absorbing nanorods

Abstract Photonic nanorods with multiple concentric layers are found to exhibit giant polarization selectivity when absorbing power from near-field sources. An improved version of chaotic accelerated particle swarm optimization is developed and employed to determine various designs for several combinations of alternating dielectric and plasmonic media, operated under visible light of different colors. The spatial distribution of the electromagnetic intensity unveils the nature of the sustained resonances across the cylindrical layers while the robustness of their response against changes in the physical dimensions is checked. The reported setups can be directly utilized as ultra-efficient components in polarization-controlled photonic integrated systems involving a wide spectrum of applications from sensing and multiplexing to analog signal processing and optical detection.