Subwavelength topological edge states based on localized spoof surface plasmonic metaparticle arrays.

Abstract

Plasmonic cluster arrays have demonstrated rich physics in topological photonics, but they are seriously affected by the material loss and limited by the requirement of high-precision machining. Here, we propose a kind of ultra-thin metaparticle arrays which can mimic the coupled localized plasmonic resonances at lower frequency ranges and so that can overcome the loss and fabrication problems in real metal plasmonic systems. The metaparticle is a metallic disk with circuitous grooves that can support both spoof electric and magnetic localized resonances, and these resonances can be pushed to a subwavelength region through tuning the geometric parameters. In virtue of the highly field confinement of these localized resonances, it is thought to be an ideal experimental platform to be an analogy with various near-field interactions in topological materials. As a first proof-of-concept study to show this feasibility, the subwavelength topological edge states at the zigzag metaparticle chain boundaries are numerically and experimentally demonstrated at microwave ranges. Moreover, the subwavelength topological edge states in this zigzag chain can be excited simply by the plane wave incidence, and the edge modes at two ends can be selectively excited by controlling the polarization direction. Therefore, this kind of metaparticle array not only provides an ideal platform to experimentally study various near-filed interaction dominated topological systems but may also find massive potential applications.