Spontaneous Emission Control in a Tunable Hybrid Photonic System

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates experimental control of spontaneous emission rates using a tunable hybrid photonic system combining an optical antenna and a mirror, revealing inverse LDOS behavior in a superemitter.

Contribution

It introduces a hybrid system for controlling spontaneous emission and shows how a superemitter's decay rate can be tuned via electrodynamic interactions with a mirror.

Findings

Superemitter decay rate is inversely proportional to mirror LDOS.

Coupling fluorophores to a plasmonic antenna enhances decay rates.

Electrodynamic interaction causes unique LDOS tracing behavior.

Abstract

We experimentally demonstrate control of the rate of spontaneous emission in a tunable hybrid photonic system that consists of two canonical building blocks for spontaneous emission control, an optical antenna and a mirror, each providing a modification of the local density of optical states (LDOS).We couple fluorophores to a plasmonic antenna to create a superemitter with an enhanced decay rate. In a superemitter analog of the seminal Drexhage experiment we probe the LDOS of a nanomechanically approached mirror. Due to the electrodynamic interaction of the antenna with its own mirror image the superemitter traces the inverse LDOS of the mirror, in stark contrast to a bare source, whose decay rate is proportional to the mirror LDOS.