Toroidal Metaphotonics and Metadevices

Abstract

AbstractToroidal moments in artificial media have received growing attention and considered as a promising framework for initiating novel approaches to manage intrinsic radiative losses in nanophotonic and plasmonic systems. In the past decade, there has been substantial attention on the characteristics and excitation methods of toroidal multipoles—in particular, toroidal dipole—in 3D bulk and planar metaplatforms. The remarkable advantages of toroidal resonances have thrust the toroidal metasurface technology from relative anonymity into the limelight, in which researchers have recently centered on developing applied optical and optoelectronic subwavelength devices based on toroidal metaphotonics and metaplasmonics. In this focused contribution, the key principles of 3D and flatland toroidal metastructures are described, and the revolutionary tools that have been implemented based on this topology are briefly highlighted. Infrared photodetectors, immunobiosensors, ultraviolet beam sources, waveguides, and functional modulators are some of the fundamental and latest examples of toroidal metadevices that have been introduced and studied experimentally so far. The possibility of the realization of strong plexciton dynamics and pronounced vacuum Rabi oscillations in toroidal plasmonic metasurfaces are also presented in this review. Ultimate efficient extreme‐subwavelength scale devices, such as low‐threshold lasers and ultrafast switches, are thus in prospect.