Since most of the work is still in progress, I will only focus on the published results:
Recently, single molecule strong light-matter coupling at room temperature was achieved using a plasmonic nanogap cavity / antenna. These cavity/antenna structures offer a high field enhancement and small mode volume, which is required to overcome the emitter’s rapid dephasing at room temperature. Among the greatest challenges of these systems is the exact placement of the emitter inside the nanogap with high precision. Various attempts have addressed this issue using statistical strategies or self-assembly approaches. We developed and implemented a novel tipless scanning probe technique PROscan (see image) that is capable of performing mechanically robust and controllable experiments deep in the optical near-field . We utilized this device to build an open and tunable nanogap antenna, into which we can locate individual emitters with nanometer precision. The high field enhancement drastically alters the emitter's emission properties and we expect to reach a point, where the emission rate is as fast as the dephasing of the emitter. In this regime, the so-called strong light-matter coupling regime, new quantum mechanical eigenstates are formed that can be utilized for N-photon emission. Furthermore, our scanning probe device can be used to investigate novel quantum materials with nanometer precision and high stability.
The results have been published in an high-impact journal (ACS Nano 2022, 16, 12831−12839) and where presented and discussed in top-tier international conferences.
