Interaction of single molecules with metallic nanoparticles

TL;DR

This paper provides a quantum mechanical framework to analyze how metallic nanoparticles influence the radiative and non-radiative decay of nearby single molecules, with computational and analytical tools for various nanoparticle shapes.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive quantum description and a boundary element method for calculating decay enhancements, along with an eigenmode expansion for surface plasmon analysis.

Findings

Enhanced radiative decay rates near nanoparticles

Large quantum yield explained for 1D and 2D nanostructures

Resonant Foerster energy transfer affected by nanoparticles

Abstract

We theoretically investigate the interaction between a single molecule and a metallic nanoparticle. We develop a general quantum mechanical description for the calculation of the enhancement of radiative and non-radiative decay channels for a molecule situated in the nearfield regime of the metallic nanoparticle. Using a boundary element method approach, we compute the scattering rates for several nanoparticle shapes. We also introduce an eigenmode expansion and quantization scheme for the surface plasmons, which allows us to analyze the scattering processes in simple physical terms. An intuitive explanation is given for the large quantum yield of quasi one- and two-dimensional nanostructures. Finally, we briefly discuss resonant Foerster energy transfer in presence of metallic nanoparticles.