Strong coupling and induced transparency with single quantum dots and plasmons: Towards ultrafast all-optical modulation at the nanoscale (Conference Presentation)

Abstract

Achieving room-temperature quantum-mechanical strong coupling, or vacuum Rabi splitting, between a single emitter and a plasmon resonance has been a longstanding goal. Recently, two peaks have been observed in the scattering spectra of plasmonic metal nanostructures coupled to single molecules and single quantum dots, and this was taken as evidence of strong coupling. However, a two-peak scattering structure can also arise at intermediate coupling strengths, below the strong-coupling threshold, due to Fano interference between the plasmon and emitter dipole. We unambiguously distinguish between intermediate and strong coupling by measuring both the scattering spectra and the photoluminescence spectra of coupled plasmon-emitter structures. Specifically, we couple single colloidal quantum dots to a plasmon resonator by placing them in the gap between a gold nanoparticle and a silver film. We observe weak, intermediate, and strong coupling in these hybrid metal-semiconductor structures at room temperature, depending on the detailed nanoscale structure of the metal nanoparticle. These structures have the potential to serve as ultrafast, low-power plasmonic modulators on the nanoscale. Both induced transparency and strong coupling can be canceled by absorbing a photon in the quantum dot, leading to a strong change in extinction at the quantum dot transition frequency. Since only a single photon must be absorbed by the QD for this to happen, the energy needed for modulation has the potential to be extremely low, and the structure has the potential to enable all-optical quantum information processing.