Photon statistics of a quantum emitter close to a lattice of plasmonic nanoparticles

Abstract

We study theoretically the statistics of photons generated by a quantum emitter located in the vicinity of a periodic plasmonic nanostructure. The presented formalism is based on a macroscopic QED formalism in conjunction with a density-matrix approach in order to obtain the second-order correlation function of the emitted photons accounting for the influence of the plasmonic environment. The metallic reservoir coupling is computed using Green's-function theory, which, for a periodic lattice of scatterers, is calculated by a multiple-scattering method. We show that the photon statistics and the antibunching of emitted photons depend very strongly on the orientation of the quantum emitter relative to the lattice, on the transition frequency of the emitter, on the intensity of the applied field, and on the geometrical parameters of the nanoparticles, such as the shell thickness.