Abstract

The optical properties of hybrid nanostructures comprised of active materials, e.g., semiconductors or J-aggregated molecules and metals are currently attracting substantial attention since they may form the basis for novel optoelectronic devices e.g. surface plasmon polariton (SPP) amplifiers, ultrafast optical switches or nanolasers [1] as well as are highly interesting from a fundamental point of view. In favorable geometries, their optical properties are governed by a new class of short-lived quasiparticles, exciton – surface plasmon polaritons [2,3], with hitherto essentially unexplored nonequilibrium dynamics. Their binding energies, $E_b={\displaystyle \int {\overrightarrow{\mu }}_{ex}(\overrightarrow{r}){\overrightarrow{E}}_{SPP}(\overrightarrow{r})d\overrightarrow{r}}$, given by the spatial overlap integral of the excitonic transition dipole moment ${\overrightarrow{\mu }}_{ex}$ and the SPP electric field ${\overrightarrow{E}}_{SPP}$, can reach large values of several hundred meV. This implies that the optical properties of such strongly coupled hybrid structures can be drastically altered by externally manipulating either ${\overrightarrow{\mu }}_{ex}$ or ${\overrightarrow{E}}_{SPP}$.

© 2011 IEEE