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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. 

Nanostructures made of metallic materials support collective oscillations of their conduction electrons, commonly known as surface plasmons. These modes, whose characteristics are determined by the material and morphology of the nanostructure, couple strongly to light and confine it into subwavelength volumes. Of particular interest are metallic nanostructures for which the size along one dimension approaches the nanometer or even the subnanometer scale, since such morphologies can lead to stronger light–matter interactions and higher degrees of confinement than regular three‐dimensional nanostructures. Here, the plasmonic response of metallic nanodisks of varying thicknesses and aspect ratios is investigated under far‐ and near‐field excitation conditions. It is found that, for far‐field excitation, the strength of the plasmonic response of the nanodisk increases with its thickness, as expected from the increase in the number of conduction electrons in the system. However, for near‐field excitation, the plasmonic response becomes stronger as the thickness of the nanodisk is reduced. This behavior is attributed to the higher efficiency with which a near‐field source couples to the plasmons supported by thinner nanodisks. The results of this work advance the understanding of the plasmonic response of thin metallic nanostructures, thus increasing their potential for the development of novel applications.

 

Casimir interactions play an important role in the dynamics of nanoscale objects. Here, we investigate the noncontact transfer of angular momentum at the nanoscale through the analysis of the Casimir torque acting on a chain of rotating nanoparticles. We show that this interaction, which arises from the vacuum and thermal fluctuations of the electromagnetic field, enables an efficient transfer of angular momentum between the elements of the chain. Working within the framework of fluctuational electrodynamics, we derive analytical expressions for the Casimir torque acting on each nanoparticle in the chain, which we use to study the synchronization of chains with different geometries and to predict unexpected dynamics, including a “rattleback”-like behavior. Our results provide insights into the Casimir torque and how it can be exploited to achieve efficient noncontact transfer of angular momentum at the nanoscale, and therefore have important implications for the control and manipulation of nanomechanical devices.