Coherent fluorescence emission by using hybrid photonic–plasmonic crystals

Abstract

The spatial and temporal coherence of the fluorescence emission controlled by a quasi-two-dimensional hybrid photonic–plasmonic crystal structure covered with a thin fluorescent-molecular-doped dielectric film is investigated experimentally. A simple theoretical model to describe how a confined quasi-two-dimensional optical mode may induce coherent fluorescence emission is also presented. Concerning the spatial coherence, it is experimentally observed that the coherence area in the plane of the light source is in excess of 49 μm2, which results in enhanced directional fluorescence emission. Concerning temporal coherence, the obtained coherence time is 4 times longer than that of the normal fluorescence emission in vacuum. Moreover, a Young's double-slit interference experiment is performed to directly confirm the spatially coherent emission. This smoking gun proof of spatial coherence is reported here for the first time for the optical-mode-modified emission.

Developing a time-domain method for simulating statistical behavior of many-emitter systems in the presence of electromagnetic field

“…can be observed for a separation distance of larger than 8µm. This is in close agreement with the result reported in the reference [13]. Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that using numerical simulation, it can be observed (Fig.10) how the fringe visibility varies for a wide range of separation distances.…”

“…In the following, the proposed method is applied to two phenomena observed for many-emitter systems; directionality of fluorescence in the presence of a plasmonic nanostructure [41] and fluorescence coherence obtained by utilizing a hybrid photonic-plasmonic structure (HPPS) [13]. The present method is validated by comparing the numerical results with the corresponding experimental results reported in the literature.…”

“…In this field, a vast number of researches has been triggered by Purcell's statement [2,3] that the behaviour of a photon emitter is highly sensitive to the surrounding electromagnetic (EM) field; both the decay rate [4] and the emission power [5] of the emitter can be effectively controlled by adjusting the EM field. Such adjustment can be performed using photonic crystal cavities [6][7][8], metallic surfaces and nano-particles [9,10], plasmonic structures [11,12] and hybrid photonic-plasmonic structures (HPPSs) [13]. Another fact to consider is that the emitted light itself can also affect the neighbouring luminescent molecules either directly, as a short-range interaction, or by exciting photonic and/or plasmonic guided modes, which leads to a long range interaction.…”

Topological phase transition and interface states in hybrid plasmonic-photonic systems

“…For PCs composed of both plasmonic and dielectric materials, not only plasmonic modes but also photonic modes exist [8][9]. Plasmonic modes have the advantage of field confinements in the subwavelength scale, but unfortunately with an unavoidable intrinsic loss.…”

Shaping the fluorescence emission by cavity plasmons in dielectric-metal core-shell resonators

“…[15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27] In those earlier studies of the reshaping of the emission by dye molecules, localized SPRs supported by individual metallic nanostructures usually exhibit low quality factors, [11][12][13]18,24 and consequently, only the reshaped fluorescence spectra with broad linewidths are observed. Although high-quality-factor hybrid photonic-plasmon propagating modes supported by periodic plasmonic structures, such as periodically patterned metal nanoparticles or dielectric sphere arrays deposited on a flat metal layer, 15,16,[25][26][27] have been reported to produce spectrally narrow fluorescence emission peaks, they are based on the diffractive coupling mechanism and thus are extremely sensitive to the incident angles. Recently, dipolar cavity plasmon modes supported on the metal semi-shells have also been shown to be apt to direct the fluorescence from the dyes contained in their dielectric cores into the forward direction.…”