Beam steering of a single nanoantenna.

Abstract

Nanoantennas play an important role as mediators to efficiently convert free-space light into localized optical energy and vice versa. However, effective control of the beam direction of a single nanoantenna remains a great challenge. In this paper, we propose an approach to steer the beam direction of a single nanoantenna by adjusting two antenna modes with opposite phase symmetry. Our theoretical study confirmed that the combination of even- and odd-symmetric modes with a phase difference of π/2 enables effective beam steering of a single nanoantenna whose steering angle is controlled by adjusting the amplitude ratio of the two antenna modes. To implement our theory in real devices, we introduced asymmetric trapezoidal nano-slot antennas with different side air-gaps of 10 and 50 nm. The trapezoidal nanoantennas can simultaneously excite the dipole and quadrupole modes in a single nanoantenna and enables effective beam steering with an angle of greater than 35° near the resonance of the quadrupole mode. In addition, the steering angle can also be controlled by adjusting the degree of asymmetry of the trapezoidal slot structure. We believe that our beam steering method for a single nanoantenna will find many potential applications in fields such as imaging, sensing, optical communication, and quantum optics.