No abstract

Surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) are spatially confined electromagnetic field modes at a metal-dielectric interface capable of generating intense near-field optical forces on ultrafast time scales. Within the field of photonics, SPPs carry significant potential for guiding and manipulating light on the nanoscale. The intense SPP fields substantially enhance light–matter interactions with quantum emitters (QEs). Thus, hybrid systems comprised of SPP resonators and various types of QEs constitute key components of the modern photonics applications. Recent advances in nanotechnology have enabled fabrication of high quality QE/metal hybrid nanostructures, in which several aspects of light–matter interactions, including those in the quantum regime have been demonstrated and extensively studied. The present Perspective explores the central phenomenon in light–matter interaction in emitter/metal hybrid nanostructures, namely, the strong dipole coupling between QEs and SPPs, particularly between excitons (Xs) and SPPs. We provide a concise description of the relevant background physics and discuss the dynamics of the coupled QE–SPP modes. We also review the extent to which the strong QE–SPP coupling has been enhanced to reach the challenging but fascinating fundamental quantum mechanical limit of a single QE coupled to a single SPP mode. Studies have demonstrated that these remarkable hybrid nanostructures supporting single QE–SPP coupled mode can potentially open up diverse exciting possibilities like single-molecule sensing, nanoscale light sources, single-photon emitters, and all-optical transistors.

We demonstrate an ultrafast manipulation of the Rabi splitting energy Ω(R) in a metal-molecular aggregate hybrid nanostructure. Femtosecond excitation drastically alters the optical properties of a model system formed by coating a gold nanoslit array with a thin J-aggregated dye layer. Controlled and reversible transient switching from strong (Ω(R) ≃ 55 meV) to weak (Ω(R) ≈ 0) coupling on a sub-ps time scale is directly evidenced by mapping the nonequilibrium dispersion relations of the coupled excitations. Such a strong, externally controllable coupling of excitons and surface plasmon polaritons is of considerable interest for ultrafast all-optical switching applications in nanoscale plasmonic circuits.

We report measurements of a coherent coupling between surface plasmon polaritons (SPP) and quantum well excitons in a hybrid metal-semiconductor nanostructure. The hybrid structure is designed to optimize the radiative exciton-SPP interaction which is probed by low-temperature, angle-resolved, far-field reflectivity spectroscopy. As a result of the coupling, a significant shift of approximately 7 meV and an increase in broadening by approximately 4 meV of the quantum well exciton resonance are observed. The experiments are corroborated by a phenomenological coupled-oscillator model predicting coupling strengths as large as 50 meV in structures with optimized detunings between the coupled exciton and SPP resonances. Such a strong interaction can, e.g., be used to enhance the luminescence yield of semiconductor quantum structures or to amplify SPP waves.