Abstract
Surface plasmon polaritons, combined excitations of light and free electrons of a metal, have emerged as an alternative information carrier for nanoscale circuitry due to their ability to confine light far below the size of the wavelength. They hold the potential to act as a revolutionary bridge between current diffraction-limited microphotonics and bandwidth-limited nanoelectronics. Interestingly, the nanoscale confinement achievable by plasmons also increases the interaction with quantum emitters, paving the way for quantum applications. Exotic non-classical properties of light such as entanglement and squeezing can be embedded into plasmons and faithfully transmitted and received. Recently, it was also shown that unique coupled plasmonic excitations can be engineered on the nanoscale with artificial media (metamaterials) to enhance and control light-matter interaction. A major departure from the conventional classical description of the plasmon is under development. The aim is to incorporate the “wave” nature of matter manifested in ultra-small metallic nanoparticles and the “particle” nature of light, which can play a role in future integrated circuits with capabilities of quantum information processing. This article reviews developments in the field of quantum nanophotonics, an exciting frontier of plasmonic applications ranging from single photon sources and quantum information transfer to single molecule sensing.
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1557%2Fmrs.2012.175/MediaObjects/43577_2012_37080761_Fig1.jpg)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1557%2Fmrs.2012.175/MediaObjects/43577_2012_37080761_Fig2.jpg)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1557%2Fmrs.2012.175/MediaObjects/43577_2012_37080761_Fig3.jpg)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1557%2Fmrs.2012.175/MediaObjects/43577_2012_37080761_Fig4.jpg)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1557%2Fmrs.2012.175/MediaObjects/43577_2012_37080761_Fig5.jpg)
Similar content being viewed by others
References
H.A. Atwater, S. Maier, A. Polman, J.A. Dionne, L. Sweatlock, MRS Bull. 30, 385 (2005).
A. Akimov, A. Mukherjee, C. Yu, D. Chang, A. Zibrov, P. Hemmer, H. Park, M. Lukin, Nature 450, 402 (2007).
M.A. Nielsen, I.L. Chuang, Quantum Computation and Quantum Information. (Cambridge University Press, UK, 2010).
Z. Jacob, V.M. Shalaev, Science 334, 463 (2011).
Z. Jacob, J. Kim, G. Naik, A. Boltasseva, E. Narimanov, V. Shalaev, Appl. Phys. B 100, 215 (2010).
Z. Jacob, I.I. Smolyaninov, E.E. Narimanov, Appl. Phys. Lett. 100, 181105 (2012).
H.N.S. Krishnamoorthy, Z. Jacob, E. Narimanov, I. Kretzschmar, V.M. Menon, Science 336, 205 (2012).
E. Altewischer, M. Van Exter, J. Woerdman, Nature 418, 304 (2002).
A. Gonzalez-Tudela, D. Martin-Cano, E. Moreno, L. Martin-Moreno, C. Tejedor, F.J. García-Vidal, Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 20501 (2011).
A. Huck, S. Smolka, P. Lodahl, A.S. Sorensen, A. Boltasseva, J. Janousek, U.L. Andersen, Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 246802 (2009).
B. Lounis, M. Orrit, Rep. Prog. Phys. 68, 1129 (2005).
P. Grangier, B. Sanders, J. Vuckovic, New J. Phys. 6 (2004).
T.M. Babinec, B. Hausmann, M. Khan, Y. Zhang, J.R. Maze, P.R. Hemmer, M. Loncar, Nat. Nanotechnol. 5, 195 (2010).
I. Aharonovich, A.D. Greentree, S. Prawer, Nat. Photonics 5, 397 (2011).
J.T. Choy, B.J.M. Hausmann, T.M. Babinec, I. Bulu, M. Khan, P. Maletinsky, A. Yacoby, M. Lončar, Nat. Photonics 5, 738 (2011).
A. Huck, S. Kumar, A. Shakoor, U. Andersen, Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 096801 (2011).
S. Fasel, F. Robin, E. Moreno, D. Erni, N. Gisin, H. Zbinden, Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 110501 (2005).
C.C. Gerry, P.L. Knight, M. Beck, Am. J. Phys. 73, 1197 (2005).
E. Moreno, F.J. García-Vidal, D. Erni, J.I. Cirac, L. Martín-Moreno, Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 236801 (2004).
R. Kolesov, B. Grotz, G. Balasubramanian, R.J. Stöhr, A.A.L. Nicolet, P.R. Hemmer, F. Jelezko, J. Wrachtrup, Nat. Phys. 5, 470 (2009).
D.E. Chang, A.S. Sorensen, E.A. Demler, M.D. Lukin, Nat. Phys. 3, 807 (2007).
D.J. Bergman, M.I. Stockman, Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 27402 (2003).
M.A. Noginov, G. Zhu, A.M. Belgrave, R. Bakker, V.M. Shalaev, E.E. Narimanov, S. Stout, E. Herz, T. Suteewong, U. Wiesner, Nature 460, 1110 (2009).
F.J. García de Abajo, J. Phys. Chem. C 112, 17983 (2008).
J. Zuloaga, E. Prodan, P. Nordlander, Nano Lett. 9, 887 (2009).
J. Zuloaga, E. Prodan, P. Nordlander, ACS Nano 4, 5269 (2010).
J.A. Scholl, A.L. Koh, J.A. Dionne, Nature 483, 421 (2012).
W. Cai, V. Shalaev, Optical Metamaterials: Fundamentals and Applications (Springer Verlag, NY, 2009).
D.R. Smith, P. Kolinko, D. Schurig, J. Opt. Soc. Am. B: Opt. Phys. 21, 1032 (2004).
V.A. Podolskiy, E.E. Narimanov, Phys. Rev. B 71, 201101 (2005).
M. Noginov, Y.A. Barnakov, G. Zhu, T. Tumkur, H. Li, E. Narimanov, Appl. Phys. Lett. 94, 151105 (2009).
J. Yao, Z. Liu, Y. Liu, Y. Wang, C. Sun, G. Bartal, A.M. Stacy, X. Zhang, Science 321, 930 (2008).
A.J. Hoffman, L. Alekseyev, S.S. Howard, K.J. Franz, D. Wasserman, V.A. Podolskiy, E.E. Narimanov, D.L. Sivco, C. Gmachl, Nat. Mater. 6, 946 (2007).
Z. Jacob, L.V. Alekseyev, E. Narimanov, Opt. Express 14, 8247 (2006).
Z. Liu, H. Lee, Y. Xiong, C. Sun, X. Zhang, Science 315, 1686 (2007).
A.A. Govyadinov, V.A. Podolskiy, Phys. Rev. B 73, 155108 (2006).
Z. Jacob, PhD dissertation, Purdue University (2010).
M. Noginov, H. Li, Y.A. Barnakov, D. Dryden, G. Nataraj, G. Zhu, C. Bonner, M. Mayy, Z. Jacob, E. Narimanov, Opt. Lett. 35, 1863 (2010).
P. Yao, C. Van Vlack, A. Reza, M. Patterson, M. Dignam, S. Hughes, Phys. Rev. B 80, 195106 (2009).
G.W. Milton, The Theory of Composites (Cambridge University Press, UK, 2002), vol. 6.
J. Elser, V.A. Podolskiy, I. Salakhutdinov, I. Avrutsky, Appl. Phys. Lett. 90, 191109 (2007).
G.V. Naik, J. Kim, A. Boltasseva, Opt. Mater. Express 1, 1090 (2011).
L. Novotny, B. Hecht, Principles of Nano-Optics (Cambridge University Press, UK, 2006).
C.L. Cortes, W. Newman, S. Molesky, Z. Jacob, J. Opt. 14, 063001 (2012).
I.M. Lifshitz, Sov. Phys. JETP 11, 1130 (1960).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Jacob, Z. Quantum plasmonics. MRS Bulletin 37, 761–767 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1557/mrs.2012.175
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1557/mrs.2012.175