Theory and numerical modeling of photonic resonances: Quasinormal Modal Expansion -- Applications in Electromagnetics

Abstract

The idea of the modal expansion in electromagnetics is derived from the research on electromagnetic resonators, which play an essential role in developments in nanophotonics. All of the electromagnetic resonators share a common property: they possess a discrete set of special frequencies that show up as peaks in scattering spectra and are called resonant modes. These resonant modes are soon recognized to dictate the interaction between electromagnetic resonators and light. This leads to a hypothesis that the optical response of resonators is the synthesis of the excitation of each physical-resonance-state in the system: Under the excitation of external pulses, these resonant modes are initially loaded, then release their energy which contributes to the total optical responses of the resonators. These resonant modes with complex frequencies are known in the literature as the Quasi-Normal Mode (QNM). Mathematically, these QNMs correspond to solutions of the eigenvalue problem of source-free Maxwell's equations. In the case where the optical structure of resonators is unbounded and the media are dispersive (and possibly anisotropic and non-reciprocal) this requires solving non-linear (in frequency) and non-Hermitian eigenvalue problems. Thus, the whole problem boils down to the study of the spectral theory for electromagnetic Maxwell operators. As a result, modal expansion formalisms have recently received a lot of attention in photonics because of their capabilities to model the physical properties in the natural resonance-state basis of the considered system, leading to a transparent interpretation of the numerical results. This manuscript is intended to extend the study of QNM expansion formalism, in particular, and nonlinear spectral theory, in general. At the same time, several numerical modelings are provided as examples for the application of modal expansion in computations.