Plasmonic bound states in the continuum for unpolarized weak spatially coherent light

Abstract

Plasmonic resonances empowered by bound states in the continuum (BICs) offer unprecedented opportunities to tailor light–matter interaction. However, excitation of high quality-factor ( <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline" id="m1"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>Q</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> -factor) quasi-BICs is often limited to collimated light at specific polarization and incident directions, rendering challenges for unpolarized focused light. The major hurdle is the lack of robustness against weak spatial coherence and poor polarization of incident light. Here, addressing this limitation, we demonstrate sharp resonances in symmetric plasmonic metasurfaces by exploiting BICs in the parameter space, offering ultraweak angular dispersion effect and polarization-independent performance. Specifically, a high- <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline" id="m2"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>Q</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> ( <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline" id="m3"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo form="prefix">≈</mml:mo> <mml:mn>71</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> ) resonance with near-perfect absorption ( <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline" id="m4"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo form="prefix">&gt;</mml:mo> <mml:mn>90</mml:mn> <mml:mi>%</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> ) is obtained for the input of unpolarized focused light covering wide incident angles (from 0° to 30°). Also, giant electric and magnetic field enhancement simultaneously occurs in quasi-BICs. These results provide a way to achieve efficient near-field enhancement using focused light produced by high numerical aperture objectives.