Shaping Electromagnetic Fields

The ability to control electromagnetic fields on the subwavelength scale could open exciting new venues in many fields of science. Transformation optics provides one way to attain such control through the local variation of the permittivity and permeability of a material. Here, we demonstrate another way to shape electromagnetic fields, taking advantage of the enormous size of the configuration space in combinatorial problems and the resonant scattering properties of metallic nanoparticles. Our design does not require the engineering of a material's electromagnetic properties and has relevance to the design of more flexible platforms for probing light-matter interaction and many body physics.