Plasmonic fields associated with metallic nanostructures are known to greatly modify photoluminescence (PL) emission and decay dynamics of nearby nanoemitters such as semiconductor nanocrystal quantum dots (NQDs) through plasmonic enhancement and quenching. Here, we demonstrate that plasmonic interaction can also be used to manipulate photon emission statistics of NQDs. Specifically, we show that sub-Poissonian statistics (antibunching) of photons emitted from individual core-shell NQDs can be transformed into super-Poissonian statistics (photon-bunching) when they are coupled with localized plasmons of a rough silver surface. More interestingly, we also show that photon emission statistics can undergo a transition from bunching to anti-bunching to Poissonian limited statistics, with increasing exciton population. We analyzed the processes involved and determined the conditions required for the manifestation of this phenomenon. Our analysis reveals the way to utilize this phenomenon as a new novel approach toward plasmonic manipulation on photon emission statistics.

Nanoplasmonics for manipulating photon emission statistics of Individual core/shell nanocrystal quantum dots

243rd National Meeting (2012)

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