Research Article

Morphology dependence of nanoparticle-on-mirror geometries: A quasinormal mode analysis

¹ School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston B15 2TT, UK
² NanoPhotonics Centre, Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0HE, UK
³ The Blackett Laboratory, Prince Consort Road, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK
⁴ Quantum Technology Foundation (Thailand), Bangkok 10110, Thailand

^* e-mail: kjb896@bham.ac.uk

Received: 17 October 2021
Accepted: 17 January 2022
Published online: 10 February 2022

Abstract

Plasmonic nanoantennas are able to produce extreme enhancements by concentrating electromagnetic fields into sub-wavelength volumes. Recently, one of the most commonly used nanoantennas is the nanoparticle-on-mirror geometry, which allowed for the room temperature strong coupling of a single molecule. Very few studies offer analysis of near-field mode decompositions, and they mainly focus on spherical and/or cylindrically-faceted nanoparticle-on-mirror geometries. Perfectly spherical nanoparticles are not easy to fabricate, with recent publications revealing that a rhombicuboctahedron is a commonly occurring nanoparticle shape – due to the crystalline nature of metallic nanoparticles. In this paper, we perform a quasi-normal mode analysis for the rhombicuboctahedron-on-mirror nanoantenna and map the field distributions of each mode. We examine how the geometry of the cavity defines the near-field distribution and energies of the modes, and we show that in some cases the mode degeneracies break. This has a significant impact on the radiative emission and far-field profile of each mode, which are measured experimentally. Understanding how realistic nanoantenna geometries behave in the near-field and far-field helps us design antennas with specific properties for controlling and sensing quantum emitters in plasmonic systems.