Mode-matching for Optical Antennas

Abstract

The emission rate of a point dipole can be strongly increased in presence of a well-designed optical antenna. Yet, optical antenna design is largely based on radio-frequency rules, ignoring e.g.~ohmic losses and non-negligible field penetration in metals at optical frequencies. Here we combine reciprocity and Poynting's theorem to derive a set of optical-frequency antenna design rules for benchmarking and optimizing the performance of optical antennas driven by single quantum emitters. Based on these findings a novel plasmonic cavity antenna design is presented exhibiting a considerably improved performance compared to a reference two-wire antenna. Our work will be useful for the design of high-performance optical antennas and nanoresonators for diverse applications ranging from quantum optics to antenna-enhanced single-emitter spectroscopy and sensing.

4 pages + appendices; 2 + 4 figures, 1 Table

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Cited by in corpus (8)

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• Nanoscale design of the local density of optical states
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• The resonant behavior of a single plasmonic helix
• Global $\mathbb{T}$ operator bounds on electromagnetic scattering: Upper bounds on far-field cross sections
• Chiral and directional optical emission from a dipole source coupled to a helical plasmonic antenna
• Double helical plasmonic antennas
• Magnetic and electric Purcell factor control through geometry optimization of high index dielectric nanostructures