Bonding and antibonding electromagnetic coupling in two interacting toroidal metamolecules

The existence of a toroidal-like eigenmode and its electromagnetic coupling in a system of dielectric particles are studied. A constituent structure (metamolecule) is made of a ring consisting of the radial arrangement of several vertically standing dielectric disks (meta-atoms). In the eigenstate of the given metamolecule, the second-order term related to the exact electric dipole in the multipole decomposition is much greater than the first-order term. This eigenstate is defined as a toroidal-like mode. Then, the characteristics of a system (metamacromolecule) composed of two identical rings are studied in both eigen- and excited states to reveal the peculiarities of the toroidal-like mode coupling. Similar to the well-known electric dipole-dipole and magnetic dipole-dipole interactions, the interaction of toroidal-like modes also appears in symmetric (bonding) and antisymmetric (antibonding) forms. Their excitation in the metamacromolecule depends on the propagation direction and polarization of the irradiating wave. The manifestation of toroidal-like mode coupling is confirmed by checking the extinction cross section and near-field distributions obtained from the full-wave numerical simulation and microwave experiment. A clear understanding of the nature of toroidicity is important from the fundamental physics perspective and practical implementation of metamaterials operated in such exotic states. Published by the American Physical Society 2024