Fundamental Limits of Nanophotonic Design

Abstract: Nanoscale fabrication techniques, computational inverse design, and fields from silicon photonics to metasurface optics are enabling transformative use of an unprecedented number of structural degrees of freedom in nanophotonics. A critical need is to understand the extreme limits to what is possible by engineering nanophotonic structures. This thesis establishes the first general theoretical framework identifying fundamental limits to light--matter interactions. It derives bounds for applications across nanophotonics, including far-field scattering, optimal wavefront shaping, optical beam switching, and wave communication, as well as the miniaturization of optical components, including perfect absorbers, linear optical analog computing units, resonant optical sensors, multilayered thin films, and high-NA metalenses. The bounds emerge from an infinite set of physical constraints that have to be satisfied by polarization fields in response to an excitation. The constraints encode power conservation in single-scenario scattering and requisite field correlations in multi-scenario scattering. The framework developed in this thesis, encompassing general linear wave scattering dynamics, offers a new way to understand optimal designs and their fundamental limits, in nanophotonics and beyond.