The previous work [1] shows that thermal evanescent near-field can enhance the rate of Forster resonant energy transfer (FRET). However, understanding the local statistical properties of the thermal evanescent near-field of metal nanoparticles still demands more theoretical and computational efforts, particularly the geometric and material factors. The Boundary Element Method (BEM) has the advantage over the Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) method in modeling the current distribution on the interfaces of arbitrary shapes. BEM can efficiently calculate the local density of states (LDOS) and cross-spectrum density (CSD) in the frequency domain. It is worthwhile emphasizing that LDOS and CSD are associated with the statistical properties of the thermal evanescent field. Based on the implementation of BEM in Scuff-EM or COMSOL, the computational study of thermal evanescent field can help us understand the geometric and material effects. Combing the BEM simulation and the new FRET formula [1] in the vicinity of a metal surface, we establish a computational approach to offer the details of why nanoparticles and photonic metamaterials can enhance the resonant energy transfer (RET) of molecular systems Our research work is focused on discovering the pattern of LDOS and CSD of thermal evanescent near-fields due to geometric and material factors. In the talk, we will discuss the geometric/shape effect of metal nanoparticle such as the sphere, ellipse, cylinder, etc. In addition, we examine an interesting nanoparticle with the alternating multilayer structure with Silica and Silver. The recent study demonstrates that the scattering spectrum can be predicted with an artificial neural network for inverse design. This nanoparticle with a multilayer structure can serve as a good model for us to study how the layer structure and material factors affect FRET of molecular systems.This study can help optimize plasmonics to facilitate resonant energy transfer in molecular systems and reveal more organic solar cell design principles.

Geometric and material effects of thermal evanescent near-field of metal-based nanoparticles and forster resonant energy transfer

2019 Fall National Meeting

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