Engineering fluorescence with plasmonic, dielectric and air metasurfaces

We review our current research effort to use metasurfaces to manipulate the near-field interactions of quantum emitters, enhancing and controlling their fluorescence properties. Different from traditional far-field applications, we focus on metasurfaces that enable precise tuning of fluorescence intensity, lifetime, and energy transfer between donor–acceptor pairs. Three approaches are explored: (1) resonant waveguide gratings that reveal hidden optical states through FRET interactions; (2) Mie voids in silicon that confine light efficiently, allowing subwavelength emission control and multi-modal imaging; and (3) plasmonic metasurfaces supporting anapole modes to confine light in nanoscale cavities, enabling accurate control of the optical local density of states.