2006/03/24 by D. E. Chang, Darrick E. Chang, Anders S. Sørensen +5
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Coupling (piping) #Dielectric #Localized surface plasmon #Materials science #Nanowire #Near-Field Optical Microscopy #Optics #Optoelectronics #Photon #Photonic and Optical Devices #Physics #Plasmon #Plasmonic and Surface Plasmon Research #Quantum optics #Scattering #Surface plasmon #Waveguide #Wavelength #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.76.035420
34 pages, 7 figures
arxiv created 2006/03/24 · openalex publication_date 2007/07/18 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We propose a method that enables strong, coherent coupling between individual optical emitters and electromagnetic excitations in conducting nanostructures. The excitations are optical plasmons that can be localized to subwavelength dimensions. Under realistic conditions, the tight confinement causes optical emission to be almost entirely directed into the propagating plasmon modes via a mechanism analogous to cavity quantum electrodynamics. We first illustrate this result for the case of a nanowire, before considering the optimized geometry of a nanotip. We describe an application of this technique involving efficient single-photon generation on demand, in which the plasmons are efficiently outcoupled to a dielectric waveguide. Finally, we analyze the effects of increased scattering due to surface roughness on these nanostructures.