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Surface plasmon-polariton (SPP) modes supported by various dielectric-metal waveguide configurations facilitate strong enhancement and (subwavelength) confinement of electromagnetic fields, enabling miniaturization of SPP-based nanophotonic components and circuits [1], while also strongly enhancing interaction of quantum emitters (QEs) with SPP guided modes [2]. The latter feature has important implications in quantum optics, sensing and lab-on-a-chip applications. One of the main challenges in developing future nano-scale quantum photonic circuits is to manage combining on a single chip a single-photon source, waveguides, modulators and detectors. In this talk, I discuss the motivation for developing quantum SPP-based components despite inherent propagation losses associated with light absorption by metals and review our latest theoretical and experimental results concerning QE coupling to the SPP modes supported by V-grooves cut in gold, i.e., to channel plasmon polaritons (CPPs) [3]. The results of careful theoretical simulations that enabled us to determine the QE position and orientation for the optimum QE-CPP coupling are presented. Furthermore, the deterministic positioning of a single QE (created by a nitrogen vacancy embedded in a diamond nanoparticle) is described, resulting in the experimental demonstration of efficient (> 40%) coupling to the CPP mode. It is argued that this approach can enable realistic and functional single-photon based plasmonic circuitry and therefore, paves the way towards the development of efficient and long distance transfer of energy in integrated solid-state quantum systems.
References:
1. D. K. Gramotnev and S. I. Bozhevolnyi, Nat. Photon. 4, 83 (2010).
2. M. S. Tame et al., Nat. Phys. 9, 329 (2013).
3. E. Bermúdez-Ureña et al., Nat. Commun. 6, 7883 (2015).
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