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Plasmonic nanostructures and metasurfaces are appealing hosts for investigation of novel optical devices and exploration of new frontiers in physical/optical processes and materials research. Recent studies have shown that these structures hold the promise of greater control over the optical and electronic properties of quantum emitters, offering a unique horizon for ultra-fast spin-controlled optical devices, quantum computation, laser systems, and sensitive photodetectors. In this Perspective, we discuss how heterostructures consisting of metal oxides, metallic nanoantennas, and dielectrics can offer a material platform wherein one can use the decay of plasmons and their near fields to passivate the defect sites of semiconductor quantum dots while enhancing their radiative decay rates. Such a platform, called functional metal-oxide plasmonic metasubstrates (FMOPs), relies on formation of two junctions at very close vicinity of each other. These include an Au/Si Schottky junction and an Si/Al oxide charge barrier. Such a double junction allows one to use hot electrons to generate a field-passivation effect, preventing migration of photo-excited electrons from quantum dots to the defect sites. Prospects of FMOP, including impact of enhancement exciton–plasmon coupling, collective transport of excitation energy, and suppression of quantum dot fluorescence blinking, are discussed.
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Nanoantennas with balanced gain and loss
Abstract The large cross sections and strong confinement provided by the plasmon resonances of metallic nanostructures make these systems an ideal platform to implement nanoantennas. Like their macroscopic counterparts, nanoantennas enhance the coupling between deep subwavelength emitters and free radiation, providing, at the same time, an increased directionality. Here, inspired by the recent works in parity-time symmetric plasmonics, we investigate how the combination of conventional plasmonic nanostructures with active materials, which display optical gain when externally pumped, can serve to enhance the performance of metallic nanoantennas. We find that the presence of gain, in addition to mitigating the losses and therefore increasing the power radiated or absorbed by an emitter, introduces a phase difference between the elements of the nanoantenna that makes the optical response of the system directional, even in the absence of geometrical asymmetry. Exploiting these properties, we analyse how a pair of nanoantennas with balanced gain and loss can enhance the far-field interaction between two dipole emitters. The results of this work provide valuable insight into the optical response of nanoantennas made of active and passive plasmonic nanostructures, with potential applications for the design of optical devices capable of actively controlling light at the nanoscale.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1710697
- PAR ID:
- 10158652
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Nanophotonics
- Volume:
- 9
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 2192-8614
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 473 to 480
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1515/nanoph-2019-0392
