Maximum electromagnetic local density of states via material structuring
Abstract
The electromagnetic local density of states (LDOS) is crucial to many aspects of photonics engineering, from enhancing emission of photon sources to radiative heat transfer and photovoltaics. We present a framework for evaluating upper bounds on the LDOS in structured media that can handle arbitrary bandwidths and accounts for critical wave scattering effects. The bounds are solely determined by the bandwidth, material susceptibility, and device footprint, with no assumptions on geometry. We derive an analytical expression for the maximum LDOS consistent with the conservation of energy across the entire design domain, which upon benchmarking with topology-optimized structures is shown to be nearly tight for large devices. Novel scaling laws for maximum LDOS enhancement are found: the bounds saturate to a finite value with increasing susceptibility and scale as the quartic root of the bandwidth for semi-infinite structures made of lossy materials, with direct implications on material selection and design applications.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Nov 14, 2022
- Source ID
- 10.1515/nanoph-2022-0600
Entities
People
- A. Soto RodrÃguez
- Pengning Chao
- Rodrick Kuate Defo
- Sean Molesky
Organizations
- Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
- National Science Foundation
- Polytechnic School of Montreal
- Princeton University