Engineering Bound States in the Continuum at Telecom Wavelengths with Non‐Bravais Lattices

Abstract

AbstractVarious optical phenomena can be induced in periodic arrays of nanoparticles by the radiative coupling of the local dipoles in each particle. Probably the most impressive example is bound states in the continuum (BICs), which are electromagnetic modes with a dispersion inside the light cone but infinite lifetime, that is, modes that cannot leak to the continuum. Symmetry‐protected BICs appear at highly symmetric points in the dispersion of periodic systems. Although the addition of nonequivalent lattice points in a unit cell is an easy and straightforward way of tuning the symmetry, BICs in such particle lattice, that is, non‐Bravais lattice, are less explored among periodic systems. Starting from a periodic square lattice of Si nanodisks, three non‐Bravais lattices are prepared by detuning size and position of the second disk in the unit cell. Diffraction‐induced coupling excites magnetic/electric dipoles in each nanodisk, producing two surface lattice resonances at the Γ point with a band gap in between. The high/low energy branch becomes a BIC for the size/position‐detuned array, respectively, while both branches are bright (or leaky) when both size and position are detuned simultaneously. The unexplored role of the interplay between magnetic and electric dipoles in dielectric nanoparticles in connection with the change of BIC to bright character in the detuned arrays is discussed with the aid of a coupled electric and magnetic dipole model. This study gives a simple way of tuning BICs at telecom wavelengths in non‐Bravais lattices, including both plasmonic and dielectric systems, thus scalable to a wide range of frequencies.