Coherent Coupling Between Surface Plasmon Polaritons and the Mesoscopic Moments of Single Quantum Dots

In this work, we study the mechanism of the coherent coupling of the surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) field and the mesoscopic moment of an epitaxially grown semiconductor quantum dot. Specifically, we studied the polarization dependent excitation of semiconductor InGaAs quantum dots (QDs) with a nearby silver plasmonic structure in the weak coupling regime. We have observed a reduction of photoluminescence (PL) signal from QDs near a silver plasmonic structure when the polarization of the excitation light satisfies the launching of an SPP field. This behavior is absent from QDs away from the silver structure. We have also observed signature of energy shift of the QD emissions in the presence of an SPP field indicative of a possible modification of the QD’s confinement potential by the SPP field. Both observations can lead to the development of possible means of dynamic tuning of QDs in applications towards quantum information processing and photonic switching.