The Superresonance: The Discovery That Was Not Done More Than One Hundred Years Ago

Abstract

The Lorentz–Mie theory describing light scattering by spherical particles was created in 1908. Nevertheless, most of the discoveries made during the last 30 years (e.g., photon jets, Fano resonance, optical anapoles, optical vortices, and acoustic jets) can be described within the framework of this theory. They were “encoded” in the Lorenz–Mie formulas and were just waiting for someone to decipher them. The article briefly discusses a new effect—the superresonance (and the accompanying Fano resonance of an extremely high order) in dielectric mesoscale spheres. Superresonance allows to generate magnetic fields with giant intensity at “hot points” (poles) of a dielectric sphere. This effect also can be explained using the Lorentz–Mie theory. However, this effect remained hidden inside the exact solution of this theory for almost 120 years!