Fluorescence enhancement in topologically optimized gallium phosphide all-dielectric nanoantennas

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that topologically optimized gallium phosphide nanoantennas can significantly enhance fluorescence, achieving up to 93-fold brightness increase, confirmed by experiments and simulations, with potential for improved fabrication techniques.

Contribution

It introduces a topologically optimized design of GaP nanoantennas for fluorescence enhancement, validated by experiments and simulations, and highlights fabrication improvements.

Findings

Average 63-fold fluorescence enhancement observed

Maximum 93-fold enhancement in nanogaps

Enhancement confirmed by numerical simulations

Abstract

Nanoantennas capable of large fluorescence enhancement with minimal absorption are crucial for future optical technologies from single-photon sources to biosensing. Efficient dielectric nanoantennas have been designed, however, evaluating their performance at the individual emitter level is challenging due to the complexity of combining high-resolution nanofabrication, spectroscopy and nanoscale positioning of the emitter. Here, we study the fluorescence enhancement in infinity-shaped gallium phosphide (GaP) nanoantennas based on a topologically optimized design. Using fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS), we probe the nanoantennas enhancement factor and observed an average of 63-fold fluorescence brightness enhancement with a maximum of 93-fold for dye molecules in nanogaps between 20 nm and 50 nm. The experimentally determined fluorescence enhancement of the nanoantennas was confirmed by numerical simulations of the local density of optical states (LDOS). Furthermore, we show that beyond design optimisation of dielectric nanoantennas, increased performances can be achieved via tailoring of nanoantenna fabrication.