Single-photon emission Mediate by Single-electron Tunneling in Plasmonic Nanojunctions

Par Quentin Schaeverbeke, PhD student, LOMA (Université de Bordeaux) & DIPC (Universidad del Pais Vasco, San Sebastian)

Mardi 26 novembre,  14h00, Salle des séminaires (215), 2e étage, Bât. A4N

Abstract :

Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) is a powerful spectroscopic tool to obtain information on surfaces or electronic structure of molecules. It has been know that the STM could also be used as a light-emission device. More recently, STM have been used to induce molecule fluorescence from electron tunneling giving information on molecular vibrations. However the precise understanding of the light-emission mechanism an its consequences in STM molecular junctions is still discussed today. We investigate theoretically one mechanism that could result in light-emission in a STM molecular junction in the experimentally relevant limit of large damping of the cavity mode κ and arbitrary coupling strength to a single-electronic level. While the current and emitted light display Franck-Condon steps at multiples of the cavity frequency with a width controlled by κ, we find that at bias voltage close to the first inelastic threshold of light-emission, the second-order photon correlation function vanishes meaning that the photon emitted are anti-bunched. Therefore our theory predicts that strong coupling to a single electronic level allows current-driven non-classical light emission.

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