Plasmonic Optical Antennas For Enhanced Light Detection And Emission PDF Download

The interaction of light with matter is a central topic in both fundamental science and applied technology. At the heart of this interaction lies the absorption or emission of a photon by an electronic transition in for example an atom, molecule or semiconductor. Because such quantum emitters are generally much smaller than the wavelength of light, they interact slowly and omnidirectionally with light, limiting their absorption and emission. At radio frequencies similar issues were encountered and addressed long ago. Electrical circuits radiate little because they are much smaller than the corresponding wavelength. To enable wireless communication, they are connected to antennas that have dimensions in the order of the wavelength. These antennas are designed to effectively convert electrical signals into radiation and vice versa. The same concept can be applied in optics. The central idea of this thesis is that the interaction of a quantum emitter with light can be improved by near-field coupling it to the resonant plasmon modes of a metal nano-particle, which then acts as an optical antenna. In this way, excitation and emission rates can be enhanced, and the angular, polarization, and spectral dependence controlled. Chapter 1 of this thesis outlines these concepts and introduces optical antennas for single emitters. The experimental demonstration of optical antennas requires the near-field coupling of a single emitter to a resonant optical antenna. We fabricated optical monopole antennas on scanning probes, so that they can be precisely positioned near single fluorescent molecules. In this way we directly mapped the changes in the excitation and emission of a single quantum emitter as it is scanned near the antenna. Chapter 2 presents the results for the excitation part of the interaction. The enhanced excitation field at the antenna is highly confined (within 25 nm); the emitter only interacts with the antenna mode over this short distance. The antenna resonances were probed directly in the near-field and show that the antenna is indeed an optical analog of a monopole antenna. The experiments in Chapter 3 demonstrate how the antenna controls the emission. If the emitter is placed at the right position and if the antenna is tuned to resonance, the angular emission of the coupled system is determined by the antenna mode, regardless of the orientation of the emitter. In Chapter 4, we exploit that fact. We demonstrate, theoretically and experimentally, that the radiation from a single emitter coupled to a multi-element optical Yagi-Uda antenna is highly directed. We show that by reciprocity such a high directivity both enhances the excitation field and the collection efficiency. An intuitive way to understand optical antennas is as cavities for surface plasmon polaritons. In chapter 5, I present an extended description of the interaction of dipolar emitters with radiation through nano-rod antenna modes, by treating the antenna as a cavity. The results demonstrate how the properties of the antenna modes evolve from macroscopic perfectly conducting antennas to nanoscale plasmonic antennas, and highlight the similarities and differences between optical and conventional antennas. The results presented in this thesis show that optical antennas provide a new way to link single emitters to light. By designing the antenna the absorption and emission properties of the emitter can be tailored. More generally, optical antennas enhance and control light-matter interaction on the nano-scale, making them promising tools for applications in topics as diverse as high resolution near-field scanning optical microscopy, non-linear optics and spectroscopy, and photovoltaic devices.