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Updated: Jun 1, 2026

Determination of the Excitation and Coupling Rates Between Light Emitters and Surface Plasmon Polaritons
Published on: July 21, 2018
Surface-plasmon-polariton-assisted dipole-dipole interaction near metal surfaces
Fei Zhou1, Ye Liu, Zhi-Yuan Li
1Laboratory of Optical Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.
Abstract:
We investigate the surface plasmon polariton (SPP)-assisted interaction between two dipoles near a metal surface. The radiation energy from a dipole can excite SPPs and transport to another dipole through the channel of the localized SPP modes. This energy transfer can be much more efficient than direct energy transfer via dipole-dipole radiation interaction in free space. A simple analytical model is proposed to describe the underlying physics behind the influence of SPP on the dipole-dipole interaction energy, and it predicts a wide variety of complicated interaction features that agree well with rigorous calculations.
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