Enhancement and Inhibition of Spontaneous Photon Emission by Resonant Silicon Nanoantennas

Abstract

Substituting noble metals for high-index dielectrics has recently been proposed as an alternative strategy in nanophotonics to design broadband optical resonators and circumvent the ohmic losses of plasmonic materials. In this report, we demonstrate that subwavelength silicon nanoantennas can manipulate the photon emission dynamics of fluorescent molecules. In practice, it is showed that dielectric nanoantennas can both increase and decrease the local density of optical states (LDOS) at room temperature, a process that is inaccessible with noble metals at the nanoscale. Using scanning probe microscopy, we analyze quantitatively, in three dimensions, the near-field interaction between a 100 nm fluorescent nanosphere and silicon nanoantennas with diameters ranging between 170 nm and 250 nm. Associated to numerical simulations, these measurements indicate increased or decreased total spontaneous decay rates by up to 15 % and a gain in the collection efficiency of emitted photons by up to 85 %. Our study demonstrates the potential of silicon-based nanoantennas for the low-loss manipulation of solid-state emitters at the nanoscale and at room temperature.

References in corpus (12)

• On-command enhancement of single molecule fluorescence using a gold nanoparticle as an optical nano-antenna
• Directional visible light scattering by silicon nanoparticles
• Magnetic light
• Strong magnetic response of submicron Silicon particles in the infrared
• Demonstration of zero optical backscattering from single nanoparticles
• Purcell factor of Mie resonators featuring electric and magnetic modes
• Scanning emitter lifetime imaging microscopy for spontaneous emission control
• Enhancing the optical excitation efficiency of a single self-assembled quantum dot with a plasmonic nanoantenna
• Towards a full characterization of a plasmonic nanostructure with a fluorescent near-field probe
• Mapping the radiative and the apparent non-radiative local density of states in the near field of a metallic nanoantenna
• Spontaneous Emission Control in a Tunable Hybrid Photonic System
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Cited by in corpus (10)

• Lasing action in single subwavelength particles supporting supercavity modes
• Enhancement of inherent Raman scattering in dielectric nanostructures with electric and magnetic Mie resonances
• All-optical switching and unidirectional plasmon launching with electron-hole plasma driven silicon nanoantennas
• Unidirectional emission in an all-dielectric nanoantenna
• Probing near-field light-matter interactions with single-molecule lifetime imaging
• Near-field acoustic imaging with a caged bubble
• Lamb shift multipolar analysis
• Imaging light scattered by a subwavelength nanofiber, from near field to far field
• Photonic Gap Antennas Based on High Index-Contrast Slot-Waveguides
• Unidirectional coupling of a quantum emitter to a subwavelength grating waveguide with engineered stationary inflection point