Enhancement and control of the spontaneous emission of nanoemitters in an integrated plasmonic structure on silicon

Single-photon sources are essential for implementing emerging quantum technologies, focused mainly on optical-quantum information processing. One of the most straightforward methods to develop non-classical light sources,... [ view full abstract ]

Single-photon sources are essential for implementing emerging quantum technologies, focused mainly on optical-quantum information processing. One of the most straightforward methods to develop non-classical light sources, generating individual photons, is the use of individual quantum emitters.

Progress in the development of efficient single-photon sources based on quantum emitters, requires the enhancement and the effective collection of the radiation emitted by quantum emitters. Dielectric photonic structures such as waveguides or photonic crystals provide a way to enhance the emission rate as the optical modes supported by such structures present strong electric fields and low mode volumes. Metallic plasmonic waveguides supporting surface plasmon-polariton (SPP) modes provide another effective route to reduce by an order of magnitude the effective mode volume and therefore, increase the emission rate of quantum emitters.

As demonstrated in [1], an extremely low effective plasmonic mode volume was measured in a plasmonic structure integrated on a silicon photonic waveguide. This work shows that indeed, the effective volume of SPP modes is well below to that of light in free-space.

The objective of this project is to explore the configurations for an efficient coupling between quantum emitters and plasmonic modes supported by integrated plasmonic structure in order to implement highly efficient single-photon sources.

An original aspect of the research is the methodology of characterization, based on the near-field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM), which enables imaging of the light propagation along the fabricated structures. This technique allows for direct and precise measurements on the coupling mechanisms with a subwavelength spatial resolution. Additionally, photon statistics measurements involving single and coincidence detection will be carried out.

Acknowledgments: To CONACYT (scholarship No. 233924) for financial support.
[1] Luo, et. al., Nano Letters, 15(2), 849-56 (2015).