Mutually enhancing light emission between plasmonic nanostructures and fluorescent emitters

Abstract

We demonstrate that the fluorescent emitters can increase light emission from the plasmonic nanostructures in turn. With the help of atomic force microscopy, a hybrid system consisting of a fluorescent nanodiamond and a gold nanoparticle was assembled step-by-step for in situ optical measurements. We found that the emission from the nanoparticle increased compared with that before coupling. The interaction between plasmonic nanostructures and fluorescent emitter was understood as an entity based on the concept of a quantized optical cavity by considering the nanodiamond and the nanoparticle as a two-level energy system and a nanoresonator, respectively. The theoretical calculations reveal that both the plasmonic coupling effect and the dielectric nanoantenna effect contribute to the enhancement of light emission from the gold nanoparticles.