Surface plasmon-polaritons in periodic arrays of V-grooves strongly coupled to quantum emitters

TL;DR

This paper studies how periodic silver V-grooves coupled with quantum emitters exhibit unique optical responses, including surface plasmon-polariton resonances and nonlinear effects, influenced by geometry and emitter distribution.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the linear and nonlinear optical responses of silver V-grooves with quantum emitters, highlighting the effects of geometry, emitter distribution, and pump conditions.

Findings

Identification of two surface plasmon-polariton resonances in silver V-grooves.

The Rabi splitting increases with the fraction of ground state emitters.

Spatial variations in emitter populations are caused by field retardation effects.

Abstract

We investigate the optical response of a system consisting of periodic silver V-grooves interacting with quantum emitters. Two surface plasmon-polariton resonances are identified in the reflection spectrum of bare silver grooves, with the intensity of one resonance being localized near the bottom of the groove and that of the other resonance being distributed throughout the entire groove. The linear response of the hybrid silver-emitter system is thoroughly analyzed by considering the coupling between surface plasmon polaritons and emitters as the geometry of the grooves and the spatial distribution of emitters within the grooves are varied. The nonlinear response of the system is also considered by pumping the emitters with a short, high-intensity pulse. By changing the duration or the intensity of the pump, the population of emitters in the ground state at the end of the pump is varied, and it is found (upon probing with a short pulse) that an increase in the fraction of emitters in the ground state corresponds to an increase in Rabi splitting. Spatial variations in the ground state population throughout the emitter region are shown to be a result of field retardation.