Enhanced spontaneous emission rate in a low-Q hybrid photonic-plasmonic nanoresonator

Abstract

In this paper, CdTe quantum dots (QDs)-doped single electrospun polymer nanofibers are partially coated with gold nanoparticles to form distinct hybrid photonic-plasmonic nanoresonators to investigate the critical role of the cavity-confined hybrid mode on the modification of the spontaneous emission dynamics of the fluorescent emitters in low-Q photonic cavities. A total enhancement factor of 11.2 is measured via a time-resolved experimental technique, which shows that there is an increase of about three times in the spontaneous emission rate for the QDs-doped gold nanoparticle-decorated nanofibers as they are compared with those uncoated ones. The physical mechanism affecting the spontaneous emission rate of the encapsulated QDs in such a hybrid photonic-plasmonic nanoresonator is explained to be due to regeneration of the mode field in the nanofiber cavity upon the interaction of the dipoles with the surface plasmons of distinctive gold nanoparticles that surround the outer surface of the nanofiber.