Interaction of plasmonic bound states in the continuum

Abstract

Bound states in continuum (BICs) are believed to have the ability to achieve high quality factor (Q factor) resonances, which is very important for plasmonics. However, the study of plasmonic BICs is not sufficient. Herein, we design and fabricate a metal−insulator−metal (MIM) metasurface and demonstrate a one-dimensional plasmonic BIC experimentally. The even-order localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) modes have even parity at normal incidence. The symmetry-protected BIC can be achieved at Γ point. The band structure can be tuned by strong coupling between the localized plasmonic resonance and plasmonic lattice mode. Interestingly, two of the hybrid modes are also BICs. Although BICs cannot interact with the far field, we successfully demonstrate BIC splitting through far-field excitation. By further tuning the pitch of the MIM grating, the Friedrich–Wintgen BIC is also observed. Finally, we propose and preliminarily demonstrate an ultrathin bandpass spatial filter. These findings provide a new platform to study optical multipole BICs and can have applications in fields such as nano lasers, ultrasensitive sensors, filters, nonlinearity enhancement, and quantum optics.