Observation of tunable accidental bound state in the continuum in silicon nanodisk array

Abstract

We experimentally demonstrate the tuning of accidental bound states in the continuum (A-BICs) in silicon nanodisk arrays. The A-BIC emerges of the destructive interference of multipoles, which are the dominating out-of-plane electric dipole and in-plane magnetic dipole, and weak electric quadrupole and magnetic quadrupole. We further show that the spectral and angular position of the A-BIC can be conveniently tuned by varying the nanodisk size or the lattice period. Remarkably, the angular position can be tuned even to 0°, suggesting an interesting transition of the A-BIC from an off-Γ-BIC to an at-Γ-BIC. Our work provides a new strategy for light trapping with high quality factors, and the obtained tunable A-BICs can find potential applications in low-threshold lasing, enhanced nonlinear optics, and optical sensing.