Linearly Polarized Light Emission from Quantum Dots with Plasmonic Nanoantenna Arrays

Abstract

Polarizers provide convenience in generating polarized light, meanwhile their adoption raises problems of extra weight, cost, and energy loss. Aiming to realize polarizer-free polarized light sources, herein, we present a plasmonic approach to achieve direct generation of linearly polarized optical waves at the nanometer scale. Periodic slot nanoantenna arrays are fabricated, which are driven by the transition dipole moments of luminescent semiconductor quantum dots. By harnessing interactions between quantum dots and scattered fields from the nanoantennas, spontaneous emission with a high degree of linear polarization is achieved from such hybrid antenna system with polarization perpendicular to antenna slot. We also demonstrate that the polarization is engineerable in aspects of both spectrum and magnitude by tailoring plasmonic resonance of the antenna arrays. Our findings will establish a basis for the development of innovative polarized light-emitting devices, which are useful in optical displays, spectroscopic techniques, optical telecommunications, and so forth.

Plasmonic enhancement and polarization dependence of nonlinear upconversion emissions from single gold nanorod@SiO2@CaF2:Yb3+,Er3+ hybrid core–shell–satellite nanostructures

“…When the polarization of the excitation laser is parallel to either the long or short axis of the hybrid nanostructure, this array structure could generate polarized UC emissions with strong intensity, and the polarization direction could be easily switched by excitation polarization. The proposed system can find wide applications ranging from illuminators in spectrometers to polarization-sensitive nanoscale photodetectors 40 , 63 .…”

Huygens' dipole for polarization-controlled nanoscale light routing

“…Considerable efforts have been made to confine the radiated power by single nano-antennas [15][16][17][18][19][20] and metasurfaces [21][22][23][24] into an even narrower angular range. These directive nano-antennas coupled to single emitters allow for controlling the emission intensity distribution [24][25][26][27][28][29][30] and polarization [31][32][33][34]. Inducing a Huygens' dipole in a nanoparticle under plane-wave illumination requires that the nanoparticle has equal first order electric a 1 and magnetic b 1 Mie coefficients [1].…”

Lattice Collective Interaction Engineered Optical Activity in Metamaterials

“…Therefore, one may expect a similar spectral collapse in the optical activity effect from the finite metamaterial arrays as the number of constitutive metamolecules increases, and experimental results demonstrate exactly that. We used a home‐built polarimeter, consisting of a rotating superachromatic quarter‐wave plate (WP), GT polarizer, and a fiber coupled spectrometer, to analyze the polarization state of the output beams from the different arrays for the x ‐polarized incidence (whose ϕ and χ are both 0) . The dispersion properties of the quarter‐wave plate, including its retardation and optical axis azimuth variation in the studied wavelength range, have already been taken into consideration and calibrated for when we performed the polarimetric measurement.…”