Silicon eccentric shell nanoparticles fabricated by template-assisted deposition for Mie magnetic resonances enhanced light confinement

We report a structure of silicon eccentric shell particles array, fabricated by the SiO2 particles monolayer array assisted deposition of amorphous Si, for high-efficiency light confinement. The SiO2 particles monolayer array is tailored to regulate its interparticle distance, followed by silicon film deposition to obtain silicon eccentric shell arrays with positive and negative off-center distance e. We studied the Mie resonances of silicon solid sphere, concentric shell, eccentric shell and observed that the eccentric shell with positive off-center e supports superior light confinement because of the enhanced Mie magnetic resonances. Spectroscopic measurements and finite difference time domain simulations were conducted to examine the optical performance of the eccentric shell particles array. Results show that the Mie magnetic resonance wavelength can be easily regulated by the size of the inner void of the silicon shell to realize tunable enhanced light confinement. It was found silicon shell with D = 460/520 nm offered high enhanced light absorption efficiency at wavelength of lambda = 830 nm, almost beyond the bandgap of the amorphous silicon.