Book Description

Enhanced light-matter interactions in light-confining structures (such as optical cavities) have been extensively investigated for both fundamental studies and practical applications. Plasmonic nanostructures, which can confine and manipulate light down to ~1 nm scale, are becoming increasingly important. Many areas of optical physics and devices can benefit from such extreme light concentration and manipulation. For example, fluorescent molecule or quantum dot (QD) emission can be strongly modified and controlled via surface plasmon polariton (SPP) coupling. In this dissertation, we present our theoretical and experimental studies on QD emission in metal nanogap structures that can provide extreme field concentration, enhancing light-matter interactions significantly. We start with a theoretical analysis of dipole emission in metal-dielectric-metal (MDM) waveguide structures. We look at both infinite (i.e. planar) and finite thickness MDM structures. We find that both structures exhibit strong spontaneous emission enhancements due to the tight confinement of modes between two metallic plates and that light emission is dominated by gap SPP coupling. For planar structures we present analytical solutions for the enhanced dipole decay rate, while for finite thickness MDM structures (i.e. nanoslits) we present results from numerical simulations. Next, we present our experiments on the SPP coupling of CdSe/ZnS QD emission in metal nanoslits. First, we observed clear lifetime and polarization state changes of QD emission with slit width due to gap SPP excitation. Second, with optimized side grooves (i.e. combined slit-groove and hole-groove structures), we collimated QD emission vertically into a very narrow angle, achieving an unprecedented level of directionality control, and visualized it with confocal scanning microscopy. Third, by using two metal plates as electrodes, we dynamically modulated the QD emission intensity and wavelength with external voltage. Finally, we extend our dipole emission calculation to several slot waveguide structures. We consider light emission in metal slots, metal-oxide-Si slots, and Si slot waveguides. We find that large spontaneous emission enhancements can be obtained over a broad range of wavelengths and that light emission is strongly funneled into slot waveguide modes. These represent broadband waveguide QED (quantum electro-dynamics) systems, which have unique merits for on-chip light sources and quantum information processing. These theoretical and experimental studies show that the SPP coupling of light emission is a very promising way to control light emission properties and may find broad application in spectroscopy, sensing, optoelectronics, and integrated optics.