Departure from the Babinet principle in metasurfaces supported by subwavelength dielectric slabs

Symmetry principles and theorems are of crucial importance in optics. Indeed, from one side, they allow obtaining direct insights into phenomena by eliminating unphysical interpretations; from the other side, they guide the designer of photonic components by narrowing down the parameter space of design variables. In this Letter, we illustrate a significant departure from the Babinet spectral complementarity in a very common and technologically relevant situation: that of a patterned conducting screen placed on a subwavelength dielectric slab. The symmetry property predicted by the Babinet theorem is correctly recovered for pairs of geometrically complementary-but less realistic in terms of applications-free-standing patterned screens. Our analysis merges experimental data with fully vectorial electromagnetic modeling and provides an alternative form of the Babinet theorem that highlights a connection with the concept of electromagnetic duality.