Radiating dipoles near curved interfaces

Abstract

The local electric field enhancement generated by radiating fluorophores near a metallic surface results in lifetime variations observable at the single molecule level. Image theory, for dipoles located above flat surfaces, accounts for the results of ensemble experiments and is extensively used to interpret single molecule results. Nonetheless, smooth local surface inhomogeneities give rise to deviations of the single fluorophore properties from the image theory predictions. For this reason, we compute the effects of leading order corrections to the reflected fields of vertical dipoles located above locally curved perfectly conducting surfaces by invoking a small slope approximation.