Quantum Eye: Lattice Plasmon Effect on Quantum Fluctuations and Photon Detection

Abstract

In this work, arrays of plasmonic nanoparticles coupled to a detector are designed and considered as a quantum eye. In the designed system, the plasmonic nanoparticles have a role like an ommatidium in the artificial compound eye; however, the quantum eye ommatidium acts with different functionality. To better understand this system, we analyze it with the full quantum theory, quantize lattice plasmon generated by the array of plasmonic nanoparticles, and finally derive bosonic operators using Heisenberg-Langevin equations. Moreover, we theoretically derive the radiative and non-radiative losses introduced by this system and examine lattice plasmon effect on spontaneous emission of the quantum dot (Purcell factor). The main goal of this article is to investigate the quantum eye's quantum properties such as quantum fluctuations, which is modeled and analyzed by studying the second-order correlation function. This function exhibits a significant bunching as a function of lattice plasmon optical properties. We can easily manipulate and improve the lattice plasmon optical properties, which dramatically depend on the array geometry. Finally, we study the quantum eye photon detection by a quantum measuring approach and show that the lattice plasmon has a strong effect on quantum properties after the one-count process. (C) 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.