Controlling Spontaneous Emission with Plasmonic Optical Patch Antennas

Cherif Belacel (1) , Benjamin Habert (2) , Florian Bigourdan (2) , François Marquier (2) , Jean-Paul Hugonin (2) , S. Michaelis de Vasconcelos (3) , Xavier Lafosse (3) , Laurent Coolen (1) , Catherine Schwob (1) , Clémentine Javaux (4) , Benoit Dubertret (4) , Jean-Jacques Greffet (2) , Pascale Senellart (3) , Agnès Maître (1)

1 INSP - Institut des Nanosciences de Paris
2 Laboratoire Charles Fabry / Naphel
3 LPN - Laboratoire de photonique et de nanostructures
4 LPEM - Laboratoire de Physique et d'Etude des Matériaux (UMR 8213)

We experimentally demonstrate the control of the spontaneous emission rate and the radiation pattern of colloidal quantum dots deterministically positioned in a plasmonic patch antenna. The antenna consists of a thin gold microdisk separated from a planar gold layer by a few tens of nanometers thick dielectric layer. The emitters are shown to radiate through the entire patch antenna in a highly directional and vertical radiation pattern. Strong acceleration of spontaneous emission is observed, depending on the antenna geometry. Considering the double dipole structure of the emitters, this corresponds to a Purcell factor up to 80 for dipoles perpendicular to the disk.

Keywords: Plasmonic antenna; quantum dot; Purcell effect; deterministic positioning

Domains: Optics / Photonic

Cherif Belacel, Benjamin Habert, Florian Bigourdan, François Marquier, Jean-Paul Hugonin, et al.. Controlling Spontaneous Emission with Plasmonic Optical Patch Antennas. Nano Letters, 2013, 13 (4), pp.1516-1521. ⟨10.1021/nl3046602⟩. ⟨hal-00821543⟩