Direct imaging of the energy transfer enhancement between two dipoles in a photonic cavity

Abstract

Photonic cavities are gathering a large interest to enhance the energy transfer between two dipoles, with far-reaching consequences for applications in photovoltaics, lighting sources and molecular biosensing. However, experimental difficulties in controlling the dipoles' positions, orientations and spectra have limited the earlier work in the visible part of the spectrum, and have led to inconsistent results. Here, we directly map the energy transfer of microwaves between two dipoles inside a resonant half-wavelength cavity with ultrahigh control in space and frequency. Our approach extends Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) theory to microwave frequencies, and bridges the gap between the descriptions of FRET using quantum electrodynamics and microwave engineering. Beyond the conceptual interest, we show how this approach can be used to optimize the design of photonic cavities to enhance dipole-dipole interactions and FRET.

Accepted for publication in PRX

References in corpus (3)

• Nanophotonic enhancement of the Förster resonance energy transfer rate on single DNA molecules
• Control of Förster energy transfer in vicinity of metallic surfaces and hyperbolic metamaterials
• Fluorescence energy transfer enhancement in aluminum nanoapertures

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Simple but accurate estimation of light-matter coupling strength and optical loss for a molecular emitter coupled with photonic modes
• Long-range Single Molecule Förster Resonance Energy Transfer Between Alexa Dyes in Zero-Mode Waveguides