Excitation of dark mode in high-index dielectric oligomer nanostructures

Resonant optical excitation of high index dielectric nanoparticles offers unique opportunities for reduced dissipative (non-radiative) losses and large resonant enhancement of both the electric and magnetic near-fields. However, they still suffer from radiative losses. One could possibly inhibit the radiative losses in dielectric nanostructures by excitation of dark modes. Here, we use Cylindrical Vector Beams with spatially variant polarization properties to excite dark modes in symmetric dielectric oligomers by breaking the symmetry of the nanostructures.