Electric and magnetic hotspots in dielectric nanowire dimers.

We study the formation of the electric and magnetic near-field hotspots in dielectric cylindrical dimers. We compare dielectric and metallic dimers by using experimental data for all materials and consider both TM and TE polarizations of light. We demonstrate that dielectric dimers allow us to simultaneously achieve pure magnetic and electric near-field hotspots for both polarizations in contrast to plasmonic structures. This offers new approaches for near-field engineering such as sensing, control of spontaneous emission, and enhanced Raman scattering.