Modal theory of modified spontaneous emission for a hybrid plasmonic photonic-crystal cavity system

TL;DR

This paper develops an analytical modal framework to understand the complex physics of hybrid plasmonic-photonic systems, accurately predicting frequency-dependent spontaneous emission rates and interference effects like Fano resonances.

Contribution

It introduces a novel modal theory that models quantum light-matter interactions in hybrid plasmonic-photonic cavities, validated by Maxwell's equations solutions.

Findings

Predicted strong frequency dependence of spontaneous emission decay rates.

Identified Fano resonances as interference between quasinormal modes.

Provided a basis for quantifying non-radiative losses.

Abstract

We present an analytical modal description of the rich physics involved in hybrid plasmonic-photonic devices that is confirmed by full dipole solutions of Maxwell's equations. Strong frequency-dependence for the spontaneous emission decay rate of a quantum dipole emitter coupled to these hybrid structures is predicted. In particular, it is shown that the Fano-type resonances reported experimentally in hybrid plasmonic systems, arise from a very large interference between dominant quasinormal modes of the systems in the frequency range of interest. The presented model forms an efficient basis for modelling quantum light-matter interactions in these complex hybrid systems and also enables the quantitativ prediction and understanding of non-radiative coupling losses.