Hybridization of dark resonant states in terahertz metasurfaces

Dark resonating states render an important role in curtailing the dominant radiative losses in various photonic structures like metamaterials (MMs), photonic crystals, waveguides, etc. Currently, radiative losses are the major degrading factors toward the strong confinement of electromagnetic radiation for MMs' applications in sensing, imaging, filters, modulators, nonlinear studies, etc. Generally, the dark states cannot be excited through the direct interaction of electromagnetic radiations with the metastructures. However, indirect excitation at suitable structural asymmetries can trigger the evolution of dark resonating states or trapped modes. In this work, we have experimentally demonstrated mode hybridization of such dark (sub-radiant) resonating states without the direct involvement of interacting bright (super-radiant) states in a metasurface consisting of asymmetric split-ring resonators. Our study further reveals that the lattice mode plays a crucial role in determining the line shapes of the split (hybridized) modes. Such tuning of dark resonance modes can find potential applications in metasurfaces-based sensing, non-linear devices besides other potential applications desiring multi-channel strong field confinement.