Boosting an anapole mode response through electromagnetic interactions beyond near-field limit in individual all-dielectric disk-ring nanostructures

Anapole modes of all-dielectric nanostructures hold great promise for many nanophotonic applications. However, anapole modes can hardly couple to other modes through far-field interactions, and their near-field enhancements are dispersed widely inside the nanostructures. These facts bring challenges to the further increasing of the response of an anapole mode. Here, we theoretically show that an anapole mode response in a dielectric nanostructure can be boosted through electromagnetic interactions with the coupling distance of a wavelength scale, which is beyond both the near-field and far-field limits. The all-dielectric nanostructure consists of a disk holding an anapole mode and a ring. Both analytical calculations and numerical simulations are carried out to investigate the electromagnetic interactions in the system. It is found that the electric dipoles associated with the fields of the anapole mode on the disk undergo retardation-related interactions with the electric dipoles associated with the ring, leading to the efficiently enhanced response of the anapole mode. The corresponding near field enhancement on the disk can reaches more than 90 times for a slotted silicon disk-ring nanostructure, where the width of the slot is 10 nm. This enhancement is about 5 times larger than that of an individual slotted disk. Our results reveal the greatly enhanced anapole mode through electromagnetic couplings in all-dielectric nanostructures, and the corresponding large field enhancement could find important applications for enhanced nonlinear photonics, near-field enhanced spectroscopies, and strong photon-exciton couplings.

Automated summary

Anapole modes in all-dielectric nanostructures can be boosted through electromagnetic interactions beyond both near-field and far-field limits. Through analytical calculations and numerical simulations, it was found that electric dipoles associated with the anapole mode undergo retardation-related interactions with electric dipoles associated with a ring in the nanostructure, leading to efficiently enhanced responses. The near-field enhancement in a slotted silicon disk-ring nanostructure reached over 90 times, indicating the greatly enhanced anapole mode through electromagnetic couplings for potential applications in enhanced nonlinear photonics and near-field enhanced spectroscopies.