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Updated: May 21, 2026

Determination of the Excitation and Coupling Rates Between Light Emitters and Surface Plasmon Polaritons
Published on: July 21, 2018
Electrodynamic coupling of electric dipole emitters to a fluctuating mode density within a nanocavity
Alexey I Chizhik1, Ingo Gregor, Frank Schleifenbaum
1III. Institute of Physics, Georg August University, 37077 Göttingen, Germany. chizhik@physik3.gwdg.de
Abstract:
We investigate the impact of rotational diffusion on the electrodynamic coupling of fluorescent dye molecules (oscillating electric dipoles) to a tunable planar metallic nanocavity. Fast rotational diffusion of the molecules leads to a rapidly fluctuating mode density of the electromagnetic field along the molecules' dipole axis, which significantly changes their coupling to the field as compared to the opposite limit of fixed dipole orientation. We derive a theoretical treatment of the problem and present experimental results for rhodamine 6G molecules in cavities filled with low and high viscosity liquids. The derived theory and presented experimental method is a powerful tool for determining absolute quantum yield values of fluorescence.
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