Collective light emission of a finite-size atomic chain

Abstract

The radiative properties of collective electronic states for a finite one-dimensional atomic chain are investigated. The influence of the chain size on the collective damping rates is examined through the dependence on both the chain length and the lattice constant. The symmetric state damping rate is shown to grow up linearly with the length for short chains, in relative to the atomic transition wavelength, and to saturate for long ones. For large lattice constants the saturation is achieved for small number of chain atoms, and vice versa for small ones. The results can be adopted for any chain of active materials, e.g., an array of quantum dots or organic molecules on a linear matrix.