Optical nanoantennas: from Tellegen metamatter to sorting plastics at scale

Optical nanoantennas are tiny structures designed to manipulate light at scales much smaller than the wavelength of visible light. These antennas leverage the principles of electromagnetic resonances to enhance or focus light, enabling applications in fields such as sensing, imaging, and quantum technologies. By interacting with light at the nanoscale, optical nanoantennas can exert extraordinary control over its properties, including polarization, direction, and intensity. This offers promising avenues for miniaturizing photonic devices and advancing next-generation optical systems. I will present examples of our work on how optical nanoantennas can be manufactured using affordable methods [1], and how they can be applied to discover new types of matter, such as magnetoelectric (Tellegen) materials for visible light [2]. Additionally, I will discuss their potential to merge concepts from magnetism (switching, storage) with light (energy, information, photochemistry) at the nanoscale [3–7], and explore the phenomenon of electromagnetic strong coupling at the nanoscale [8,9]. Finally, I will highlight how, due to large-scale and highly parallel nanofabrication techniques, we are able to bring optical nanoantennas into industrial applications, such as highly accurate sorting of plastics and other materials for recycling [10].

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