Focusing and extraction of light mediated by Bloch surface waves

The control of emission from localized light sources is an objective of outstanding relevance in nanophotonics. In a recent past, a large number of metallic nanostructures has been proposed to this end, wherein plasmonic modes are exploited as energy carriers on a subwavelength scale. As an interesting alternative, we present here the use of surface modes on patterned dielectric multilayers to deliver electromagnetic power from free-space to localized volumes and vice versa. Thanks to this low-loss energy transfer, proper periodic ring structures are shown to provide a subwavelength focusing of an external radiation onto the multilayer surface. By reciprocity, the radiated power from emitters within the ring center is shown to be efficiently beamed in the free-space, with a well-controlled angular divergence. This mechanism overcomes some important limitations involved in the all-plasmonic approach, while opening new opportunities for hybrid devices in photon management applications such as optical sensing and lighting.