Emission Efficiency Enhancement of Er³⁺ Ions in Silica by Near‐Field Coupling With Plasmonic and Pre‐Plasmonic Nanostructures

Abstract

Plasmonic nanostructures have been the object of strong scientific interest in the last decade for their linear and nonlinear optical properties. The present work is focused on the capability to control and enhance the Er 3þ emission efficiency in silica by near-field coupling with plasmonic and pre-plasmonic nanostructures. The results shows that more than one order of magnitude Er 3þ PL enhancement can be obtained with ultra-small pre-plasmonic Ag clusters synthesized by ion implantation and thermal annealing. Moreover, resonantly coupled extended plasmonic nanostructures in the form of gold nanohole arrays can efficiently interact with the Er ions, leading to a 20-fold increase of their radiative emission at 1.54 μm.

Lanthanide Ions Sensitization by Small Noble Metal Nanoclusters

“…As an example of these results, in Figure 1, we reported the trend as a function of the annealing temperature in a N 2 atmosphere of the Er 3+ PL emission of three sets of Er-doped silica samples containing metallic nanoclusters of Au (orange dots), AuAg (blue dots), and Ag (red dots), incorporated by ion implantation. 19,23,35 The legend shows the ratio of the Er/metal implantation fluence. At 600 °C (where the strongest PL emission is detected, featuring clusters with N = 10−15 atoms, as revealed by EXAFS), 23,36 the Er 3+ PL enhancement factor is about 17 for Ag, 15 for the Au/Ag alloy and 3 for the Au, as visible from Figure 1.…”

“…• Ag-based 24,35 and Au/Ag alloy-based NCs 23 can enhance Er 3+ PL more effectively than Au NCs (see Figure 1). 19,22,25,26 • In the case of Au N , structures composed by N = 10−15 atoms enhance the lanthanide PL more effectively than larger or smaller aggregates.…”

“…Remarkably, our theoretical approach also allowed us to predict the effect a reducing atmosphere annealing could have Au, Ag, and AuAg refer to NCs composed of gold, silver, and gold/ silver alloy, respectively. 19,23,35 Ratio within rounded brackets refers to the relative Er-metal implantation fluence in the sample (the Er implantation fluence was about 7 × 10 14 at/cm 2 ). The solid lines are to be used as a guide for the eye.…”

Optimal geometry for plasmonic sensing with non-interacting Au nanodisk arrays

“…Plasmonic nanostructures are very effective in conning light at the nano scale. 1 Ranging from nonlinear optics [2][3][4] to photovoltaics 5,6 and light emission control, [7][8][9] a lot of nanosytems have been proposed which exploit plasmonic effects to get nanodevices with improved performances. 10 On the other hand, the eld in which nanoarchitectures gave remarkable and widely investigated results is sensing.…”

All-Dielectric Silicon Nanoslots forEr3+Photoluminescence Enhancement

“…Indeed, the realization of antennas and cavities (either metallic or all-dielectric) with dimensions much smaller than the emission wavelength has attracted growing interest in the field of nanophotonics, as a path to emission engineering. The coupling of emitters with plasmonic nanostructures has been deeply investigated, showing the possibility of achieving high Purcell factors for emitters in close proximity [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. Nevertheless, the occurrence of a nonradiative energy transfer toward the metallic nanostructures limits the efficiency of the amplification process, decreasing the quantum efficiency of the emitting system [17,18] and raising serious limitations for cutting-edge * boris.kalinic@unipd.it applications such as quantum technologies.…”