Eccentric metallo-dielectric core-shell nanoparticles for switching and guiding purposes

Metallo-dielectric or dielectric-dielectric core-shell nanoparticles have been proposed during last years for enhancing the near Zero-Forward and Zero-Backward conditions because they support tunable electric and magnetic resonances. By changing the relative size of the core respect to the particle size, electric and magnetic resonances are shifted. As a consequence, they can be used to control the direction of the scattered radiation. Here, we demonstrate the possibility of using isolated eccentric metallo-dielectric core-shell nanoparticles for redirecting the incident radiation into some specific directions eventually different from the forward and backward ones. In particular, we show their utility for building operational switching devices, whose on/off state only depends on the polarization of the incident radiation. Chains of these scattering units have shown good radiation guiding effects at the nanoscale level.