Tailoring the multipoles in THz toroidal metamaterials

The multipoles play a significant role in determining the resonant behavior of subwavelength resonators that form the basis of metamaterial and plasmonic systems. Here, we study the impact of multipoles including toroidal dipole on the resonance intensity and linewidth of the fundamental inductive-capacitance (LC) resonance of a metamaterial array. The dominant multipoles that strongly contribute to the resonances are tailored by spatial rearrangement of the neighboring resonators such that the mutual interactions between the magnetic, electric, and toroidal configurations lead to enormous change in the linewidth as well as the resonance intensity of the LC mode. Manipulation of the multipoles in a metamaterial array provides a general strategy for the optimization of the quality factor of metamaterial resonances, which is fundamental to its applications in broad areas of sensing, lasing and nonlinear optics where stronger field confinement plays a significant role.