Spatially uniform enhancement of single quantum dot emission using plasmonic grating decoupler

Abstract : 1 We demonstrate a spatially uniform enhancement of individual quantum dot (QD) fluorescence emission using plasmonic grating decouplers on thin gold or silver films. Individual QDs are deposited within the grating in a controlled way to investigate the position dependency on both the radiation pattern and emission enhancement. We also describe the optimization of the grating decoupler. We achieve a fluorescence enhancement ~3 times higher than using flat plasmon film, for any QD position in the grating. Future optical quantum devices require the development of photonic sources with control of light down to the single photon limit. Excellent examples of single photon emitters are the colloidal nanocrystal quantum dots (QDs) which are considered as the building blocks for future quantum devices such as quantum qubits and quantum cryptographic devices 1,2. The application area of quantum emitters is wide and these applications require control of their emission such as emission rate, polarization, spectral properties, collection efficiency etc. Integration of single molecule or nanocrystals into plasmonic structures has recently proved to be one of the most promising yet challenging ways to control the emission properties at the single photon level 3,4