APL Photonics (Aug 2019)

Hybrid plasmonic waveguide coupling of photons from a single molecule

  • S. Grandi,
  • M. P. Nielsen,
  • J. Cambiasso,
  • S. Boissier,
  • K. D. Major,
  • C. Reardon,
  • T. F. Krauss,
  • R. F. Oulton,
  • E. A. Hinds,
  • A. S. Clark

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5110275
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 4, no. 8
pp. 086101 – 086101-6

Abstract

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We demonstrate the emission of photons from a single molecule into a hybrid gap plasmon waveguide. Crystals of anthracene, doped with dibenzoterrylene (DBT), are grown on top of the waveguides. We investigate a single DBT molecule coupled to the plasmonic region of one of the guides and determine its in-plane orientation, excited state lifetime, and saturation intensity. The molecule emits light into the guide, which is remotely out-coupled by a grating. The second-order autocorrelation and cross-correlation functions show that the emitter is a single molecule and that the light emerging from the grating comes from that molecule. The coupling efficiency is found to be βWG = 11.6(1.5)%. This type of structure is promising for building new functionality into quantum-photonic circuits, where localized regions of strong emitter-guide coupling can be interconnected by low-loss dielectric guides.