Tunable plasmonic bound states in the continuum in the visible range

Abstract

Bound states in the continuum (BICs) have been observed in a variety of systems. A plasmonic BIC offers interesting opportunities, since a surface plasmon is known to confine light to the nanometer scale. However, the observation and manipulation of plasmonic BICs is a challenge due to the intrinsic loss of metals. Here, we study plasmonic BICs in the visible range in a one-dimensional all-metallic grating. First, by tuning the resonances of localized and propagating surface plasmon modes to resonance, we successfully observe symmetry-protected plasmonic BICs in an all-metallic system. Next, by continuously tuning the localized mode, we demonstrate topological band inversion characterized by a Zak phase transition. In addition, we engineer off-\ensuremath{\Gamma}-point BICs and confirm their formation mechanism. Finally, we experimentally determine that the quality ($Q$) factor of a 10-groove structure can exceed 60, about one order of magnitude greater than conventional metallic structures. The simulations reveal that, with more grooves, the $Q$ factor can be over 200. The plasmonic BICs in the visible range demonstrated in this paper pave the way to promising applications in lasers, sensors, light-matter interactions, nonlinear optics, and quantum optics.