title: Ultimate Limit of Light Extinction by Nanophotonic Structures.
abstract: Nanophotonic structures make it possible to precisely engineer the optical response at deep subwavelength scales. However, a fundamental understanding of the general performance limits remains a challenge. Here we use extensive electrodynamics simulations to demonstrate that the so-called f-sum rule sets a strict upper bound to the light extinction by nanostructures regardless their internal interactions and retardation effects. In particular, we show that the f-sum rule applies to arbitrarily complex plasmonic metal structures that exhibit an extraordinary spectral sensitivity to size, shape, near-field coupling effects, and incident polarization. The results may be used for benchmarking light scattering and absorption efficiencies, thus imposing fundamental limits on solar light harvesting, biomedical photonics, and optical communications.
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Physics, Chalmers University of Technology , 41296 Göteborg, Sweden.
authors.forename: Zhong-Jian
authors.initials: ZJ
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Physics, Chalmers University of Technology , 41296 Göteborg, Sweden.|Center of New Technologies, University of Warsaw , Zwirki i Wigury 93, 02-089 Warsaw, Poland.
authors.forename: Tomasz J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Antosiewicz
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Physics, Chalmers University of Technology , 41296 Göteborg, Sweden.
authors.forename: Ruggero
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Verre
authors.affiliation: ICFO - Institut de Ciencies Fotoniques, The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology , 08860 Castelldefels, Barcelona, Spain.|ICREA-Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avancats , Passeig Lluı́s Companys, 23, 08010 Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: F Javier
authors.initials: FJ
authors.lastname: García de Abajo
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Physics, Chalmers University of Technology , 41296 Göteborg, Sweden.
authors.forename: S Peter
authors.initials: SP
authors.lastname: Apell
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Physics, Chalmers University of Technology , 41296 Göteborg, Sweden.
authors.forename: Mikael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Käll
keywords: Nanophotonics; extinction; f-sum rule; plasmonics