Plasmon-coupled resonance energy transfer: A real-time electrodynamics approach

Area of Science:

• Physical Chemistry
• Nanophotonics
• Computational Electrodynamics

Background:

• Resonance energy transfer (RET) is crucial for energy transport in molecular systems.
• Understanding RET in complex environments with nanostructures is challenging.
• Existing methods may not accurately capture RET dynamics in inhomogeneous media.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a real-time electrodynamics approach for calculating RET rates.
• To investigate plasmon-coupled resonance energy transfer (PC-RET) in the presence of nanostructures.
• To provide a computationally efficient method for analyzing energy transfer in complex media.

Main Methods:

• Developed a classical electrodynamics expression for the energy transfer matrix element.
• Utilized the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method to solve Maxwell's equations.
• Calculated electric fields generated by a molecular donor at the acceptor's position.

Main Results:

• The approach accurately predicts RET rates in homogeneous media, matching quantum electrodynamics (QED) theory.
• Plasmon excitation near gold nanoparticles can enhance RET rates by up to 10^6.
• Long-range energy transfer (hundreds of nm) becomes feasible due to plasmonic effects.

Conclusions:

• The new PC-RET approach offers a powerful tool for studying energy transfer in nanostructured environments.
• Significant enhancement of RET rates by plasmons opens possibilities for advanced light harvesting and sensing.
• This method is applicable to systems with inhomogeneous, absorbing, and dispersive media.