All-dielectric nanoantennas for unidirectional excitation of electromagnetic guided modes

Abstract

Engineering of intensity and direction of radiation from a single quantum emitter by means of structuring of their environment at the nanoscale is at the cornerstone of modern nanophotonics. Recently discovered systems exhibiting spin--orbit coupling of light are of particular interest in this context. In this Letter, we have demonstrated that asymmetrical excitation of a high-index subwavelength dielectric nanoparticle by a point dipole source located in a notch at its surface results in formation of a chiral near field, which is similar to that of a circularly polarized dipole or quadrupole. Using numerical simulations, we have shown that this effect is the result of a higher multipole (quadrupole and octupole) modes excitation within the nanoparticle. We have applied this effect for unidirectional excitation of dielectric waveguide and surface plasmon-polariton modes. We have achieved the value of front--to--back ratio up to 5.5 for dielectric waveguide and to 7.5 for the plasmonic one. Our results are important for the integrated nanophotonics and quantum information processing systems.