High-contrast switching and high-efficiency extracting for spontaneous emission based on tunable gap surface plasmon

He Hao, Juanjuan Ren, Xueke Duan, Guowei Lu, Iam Choon Khoo, Qihuang Gong, Ying Gu

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

13 Scopus citations

Abstract

Controlling spontaneous emission at optical scale lies in the heart of ultracompact quantum photonic devices, such as on-chip single photon sources, nanolasers and nanophotonic detectors. However, achiving a large modulation of fluorescence intensity and guiding the emitted photons into low-loss nanophotonic structures remain rather challenging issue. Here, using the liquid crystal-tuned gap surface plasmon, we theoretically demonstrate both a high-contrast switching of the spontaneous emission and high-efficiency extraction of the photons with a specially-designed tunable surface plasmon nanostructures. Through varying the refractive index of liquid crystal, the local electromagnetic field of the gap surface plasmon can be greatly modulated, thereby leading to the swithching of the spontaneous emission of the emitter placed at the nanoscale gap. By optimizing the material and geometrical parameters, the total decay rate can be changed from 103γ0 to 8750γ0, [γ0 is the spontaneous emission rate in vacuum] with the contrast ratio of 85. Further more, in the design also enables propagation of the emitted photons along the low-loss phase-matched nanofibers with a collection efficiency of more than 40%. The proposal provides a novel mechanism for simultaneously switching and extracting the spontaneous emitted photons in hybrid photonic nanostructures, propelling the implementation in on-chip tunable quantum devices.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number11244
JournalScientific reports
Volume8
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 1 2018

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • General

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'High-contrast switching and high-efficiency extracting for spontaneous emission based on tunable gap surface plasmon'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this