Toward Polarization Routing of Magnetic and Electric Dipolar Emission with Dielectric Metasurfaces

Abstract We investigate the polarization properties of emission associated with the magnetic dipole and electric dipole transitions of europium(III) coupled to an anisotropic dielectric metasurface with polarization-engineered electric and magnetic photonic local density of states. The metasurface consists of a square array of Mie-resonant elliptical a-Si:H dimers situated on a SiO2 substrate and embedded in a PMMA film containing Eu(TTA)3. Based on the reciprocity principle, it was designed to achieve maximum electric (magnetic) field enhancement in the dimer gap at 610 nm (590 nm) for x-polarized (y-polarized) normally incident light in order to selectively enhance the electric dipole (magnetic dipole) emission into the x-polarized (y-polarized) emission channel, respectively. Momentum-resolved spectroscopy and back-focal plane imaging of emission of the fabricated light-emitting metasurface clearly reveal the intended polarization-dependent emission behavior, with the x-polarized (y-polarized) emission showing a reduced (enhanced) ratio of the magnetic (electric) dipole emission intensity, respectively, where the magnetic dipole emission is enhanced by magnetic field enhancement from the nanostructures. The demonstrated polarization-dependent interaction of a designed nanostructure with the electric- and magnetic dipolar transitions of trivalent lanthanide ions opens an avenue toward routing of emission of different multipolar orders into different polarization channels.