volume | PIER Journals

Abstract

Quantum emitters coupled to plasmonic nanostructures can act as extremely bright single-photon sources. Interestingly, the mode volumes supported by the plasmonic nanostructures can be several orders of magnitude smaller than the cubic wavelength, which leads to dramatically enhanced light-matter interactions and drastically increased photon emission. However, the requirements of a small mode volume for emission speed-up are always contradictory with a sufficiently large mode volume for efficient extraction, especially in a single architecture. Here, we report the design of a topology-optimized plasmonic nanoantenna to alleviate the above limitation which could greatly enhance far-field photon extraction. The plasmonic nanoantenna is composed of an optimized gold pattern and a silicon nitride substrate, with a nanohole in the center of the gold pattern. Our design is based on density-based topology optimization and is inherently robust to dimensions and fabrication errors. As a result, the normalized extraction decay rate (γ_e⁄γ₀) can reach 5.48 at a wavelength of 517 nm if an objective lens with a numerical aperture of 0.45 is utilized. Plasmonic nanostructures can be obtained with a small mode volume of about 5 × 10^-21 m³, while emission speed-up could still be achieved. The proposed method to alleviate the contradiction of plasmonic mode volume could brighten the prospects for future integration of single-photon sources into photonic quantum networks and applications in quantum information science.

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Ms. Min Chen

Dr. Lian Shen

Mr. Yifei Hua

Dr. Zijian Qin

Dr. Huaping Wang