Metaphotonics for unprecedented manipulation of light

Light-matter interactions can be highly controlled via structuring at the sub-wavelength (e.g., meta-atoms) and mesoscopic regime (e.g., photonic crystals). A single-layer of designed and engineered subwavelength unit cells, so-called metasurfaces, can resonantly couple to the incident light and manipulate the light’s behaviour on demand. These metasurfaces can reproduce the functions of bulk optics and, on occasions, can offer new functionalities. Hence, metasurfaces are a valuable tool for enhancing light-matter interaction, but also for practical applications. Likewise, silicon photonic crystals are promising for the development electro-optical devices given their low fabrication cost, compatibility with silicon electronics production, and low signal attenuation over a broad spectral range below the electronic band-gap.<br/>This contribution will highlight the analytical, numerical and experimental work by the Metamaterials and Nanophotonics Group at University of Birmingham in the context of metasurfaces and silicon photonic crystal slabs for applications in beam manipulation [1,2], surface waveguiding [3,4] and nonlinearities [5]. The contribution will discuss examples operating across the whole electromagnetic spectrum.<br/><br/>[1] K. Song et al., Adv. Funct. Mat. 33 (2023), 2215105-1-10.<br/>[2] K. Song et al., Adv. Funct. Mat. 33 (2023), 2305145-1-9.<br/>[3] S. Freer et al., IEEE Trans. Terahertz Sci. Techn. Early view; DOI: 10.1109/TTHZ.2024.3358738 <br/>[4] J. Qing et al., Adv. Photon. Res. Early view; DOI:10.1002/adpr.202300250<br/>[5] R. Wu et al., Opt. Express 31 (2023), 35644-35652.