Surface plasmon propagation and exciton-plasmon coupling in metal nanowires

Metal nanostructures can concentrate electromagnetic energy into nanoscale volumes due to the excitation of surface plasmons, which enables the manipulation of light beyond the diffraction limit. Plasmonic devices are promising for building compact on-chip integrated circuits for potential nanophotonic and quantum information applications. In this talk, I will present our studies on surface plasmons in metal nanowires. By manipulating the multiple plasmon modes in metal nanowires, the extraordinary plasmon propagation behaviors were revealed and utilized to design nanophotonic devices. In the coupled system of a single quantum dot and a silver nanowire, the decay rates of all the exciton recombination channels and the quantum efficiency of single plasmon generation were obtained.