Super Bound States in the Continuum on a Photonic Flatband: Concept, Experimental Realization, and Optical Trapping Demonstration
Ngoc Duc Le, Paul Bouteyre, Ali Kheir-Aldine, Florian Dubois, Sébastien Cueff, Lotfi Berguiga, Xavier Letartre, Pierre Viktorovitch, T. Benyattou, Hai Son Nguyen
Abstract
In this Letter, we theoretically propose and experimentally demonstrate the formation of a super bound state in a continuum (BIC) on a photonic crystal flat band. This unique state simultaneously exhibits an enhanced quality factor and near-zero group velocity across an extended region of the Brillouin zone. It is achieved at the topological transition when a symmetry-protected BIC pinned at k=0 merges with two Friedrich-Wintgen quasi-BICs, which arise from the destructive interference between lossy photonic modes of opposite symmetries. As a proof of concept, we employ the ultraflat super BIC to demonstrate three-dimensional optical trapping of individual particles. Our findings present a novel approach to engineering both the real and imaginary components of photonic states on a subwavelength scale for innovative optoelectronic devices.