Broadband Omnidirectional Diversion of Light in Hybrid Plasmonic‐Photonic Heterocrystals

Broadband, omnidirectional, and polarization‐independent diversion has been achieved of more than 90% of the light flow intensity off its incidence direction using hybrid metal–dielectric plasmonic‐photonic heterocrystals. These architectures were prepared by depositing metal film on the interface between two photonic crystals of different parameters. The magnitude of light losses was extracted from angle‐resolved measurements of transmission and reflectance spectra. Comparing these data for different stages of constructing the complex architecture, the diffraction in colloidal crystals, the excitation and radiative decay of short‐living surface plasmon polaritons in a corrugated metal film and the eigenmode mismatch at the interface between two different photonic crystals were identified as corroborating physical mechanisms behind the light diversion.