Open AccessStrong coupling of surface plasmon polaritons and ensembles of dye molecules
Author(s) -
T. U. Tumkur,
Guohua Zhu,
M. A. Noginov
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
optics express
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.394
H-Index - 271
ISSN - 1094-4087
DOI - 10.1364/oe.24.003921
Subject(s) - surface plasmon polariton , surface plasmon , reflectometry , plasmon , dispersion (optics) , materials science , optics , excited state , polariton , prism , excitation , molecular physics , localized surface plasmon , atomic physics , optoelectronics , physics , time domain , quantum mechanics , computer science , computer vision
We demonstrate the strong coupling of dye molecules to surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) excited in the Kretschmann geometry and propagating at the interface of silver and dye-doped polymer. The dispersion curve of such a system, studied in the reflectometry experiments, is split into three branches and demonstrates an avoided crossing - the signature of a strong coupling. We have further studied the excitation spectra of the dye emission and found that the positions of the excitation peaks have a good match with the points in the dispersion curve determined by the reflectometry. At the same time, the analysis of the spectra of the plasmon-mediated spontaneous emission, decoupled to the prism and acquired at multiple collection angles, has resulted in a quite different dispersion curve exhibiting a non-trivial splitting into multiple branches. This suggests that the same plasmonic environment couples differently to absorbing and emitting dye molecules.