Dipole-dipole interactions in the presence of a topological insulator stratified sphere: dyadic Green’s function method

Abstract

Dyadic Green’s functions (DGFs) are developed for calculating electric fields induced by multiple sources in the presence of a topological insulator (TI) stratified sphere within the framework of axion electrodynamics. Generalizing our previous work, these sources can be placed at arbitrary locations rather than be limited outside the TI stratified sphere. Utilizing these DGFs, we explore the topological magneto-electric (TME) effect of the dipole–dipole interaction in the presence of composite structures of an alternating metal-TI stratified sphere, causing some modifications of the energy transfer (ET) enhancement spectrum. Furthermore, for the multipolar resonances of the metal shells, we find the TME-induced red-shifts of each bonding and antibonding mode in the ET enhancement spectrum are independent on the locations and orientations of the two dipoles but only depend on the configuration of these composite structures. These phenomenological findings provide some useful guidance with experimenters to design realistic experiments for exploring possible unique TME signatures via the energy transfer between molecules near/in TI multicoated nanoparticles in the near-infrared region.