Spontaneous Emission Enhancement by a Rectangular-Aperture Optical Nanoantenna: An Intuitive Semi-Analytical Model of Surface Plasmon Polaritons

Xinyue Zhang; Xuelin Zhai; Can Tao; Ning Wang; Ying Zhong; Haitao Liu

doi:10.3390/photonics8120572

Photonics (Dec 2021)

Spontaneous Emission Enhancement by a Rectangular-Aperture Optical Nanoantenna: An Intuitive Semi-Analytical Model of Surface Plasmon Polaritons

Xinyue Zhang,
Xuelin Zhai,
Can Tao,
Ning Wang,
Ying Zhong,
Haitao Liu

Affiliations

Xinyue Zhang: Tianjin Key Laboratory of Micro-Scale Optical Information Science and Technology, Institute of Modern Optics, College of Electronic Information and Optical Engineering, Nankai University, Tianjin 300350, China
Xuelin Zhai: Tianjin Key Laboratory of Micro-Scale Optical Information Science and Technology, Institute of Modern Optics, College of Electronic Information and Optical Engineering, Nankai University, Tianjin 300350, China
Can Tao: Tianjin Key Laboratory of Micro-Scale Optical Information Science and Technology, Institute of Modern Optics, College of Electronic Information and Optical Engineering, Nankai University, Tianjin 300350, China
Ning Wang: Tianjin Key Laboratory of Micro-Scale Optical Information Science and Technology, Institute of Modern Optics, College of Electronic Information and Optical Engineering, Nankai University, Tianjin 300350, China
Ying Zhong: State Key Laboratory of Precision Measurement Technology and Instruments, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China
Haitao Liu: Tianjin Key Laboratory of Micro-Scale Optical Information Science and Technology, Institute of Modern Optics, College of Electronic Information and Optical Engineering, Nankai University, Tianjin 300350, China

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/photonics8120572
Journal volume & issue: Vol. 8, no. 12
p. 572

Abstract

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The spontaneous-emission enhancement effect of a single metallic rectangular-aperture optical nanoantenna on a SiO2 substrate was investigated theoretically. By considering the excitation and multiple scattering of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) in the aperture, an intuitive and comprehensive SPP model was established. The model can comprehensively predict the total spontaneous emission rate, the radiative emission rate and the angular distribution of the far-field emission of a point source in the aperture. Two phase-matching conditions are derived from the model for predicting the resonance and show that the spontaneous-emission enhancement by the antenna comes from the Fabry–Perot resonance of the SPP in the aperture. In addition, when scanning the position of the point source and the aperture length, the SPP model does not need to repeatedly solve the Maxwell’s equations, which shows a superior computational efficiency compared to the full-wave numerical method.

Published in Photonics

ISSN: 2304-6732 (Online)
Publisher: MDPI AG
Country of publisher: Switzerland
LCC subjects: Technology: Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General): Applied optics. Photonics
Website: http://www.mdpi.com/journal/photonics

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