Abstract
Optical near-fields have a hierarchical nature, meaning that they exhibit different behavior at different scales of observation. This is one notable feature in nanometer-scale light-matter interactions, besides the ability to break through the diffraction limit of light. We studied such hierarchy in optical near-fields by engineering the shape of metal nanostructures. We numerically and experimentally demonstrated a hierarchical optical response from triangular-shaped metal nanostructures. Strong localized electric fields were excited on a smaller scale, whereas two different states were excited on a larger scale. Combined with localized energy-dissipation on the smaller-scale, this hierarchy should enable novel functionality, such as traceability of optical memories.
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