Scattering of electromagnetic waves by an arbitrary nanoscale object can becharacterized by a multipole decomposition of the electromagnetic field thatallows to describe the scattering intensity and radiation pattern throughinterferences of dominating excited multipole modes. In modern nanophotonics,both generation and interference of multipole modes start to play anindispensable role, and they enable nanoscale manipulation of light with manyrelated applications. Here we review the multipolar interference effects inmetallic, metal-dielectric, and dielectric nanostructures, and suggest acomprehensive view on many phenomena involving the interferences of electric,magnetic and toroidal multipoles, which drive a number of recently discussedeffects in nanophotonics such as unidirectional scattering, effective opticalantiferromagnetism, generalized Kerker scattering with controlled angularpatterns, generalized Brewster angle, and nonradiating optical anapoles. Wefurther discuss other types of possible multipolar interference effects not yetexploited in literature and envisage the prospect of achieving more flexibleand advanced nanoscale control of light relying on the concepts of multipolarinterference through full phase and amplitude engineering.
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