Orders-of-magnitude reduction in photonic mode volume by nano-sculpting

Abstract: Three-dimensionally sculpted dielectric nanostructures supporting material(air) confined optical modes with single-emitter mode volumes three(four) orders of magnitude below the diffraction limit, $V_{\textbf{r}0} \approx 0.0004 \left[\lambda/(2 n)\right]^3 \left( V{\textbf{r}0} \approx 0.00003 \left[\lambda/2\right]^3\right)$, are discovered using topology optimization. Encapsulating the nanostructure by ellipsoidal shells enables seemingly unbounded mode quality factor enhancement ($Q > 10^8$ demonstrated numerically) leading to Purcell enhancement above $10^{11}$. It is studied how $V{\textbf{r}_0}$ and $Q$ depend on the choice of material, device volume, minimum feature size and number of shells.