Enhanced and tunable electric dipole–dipole interactions near a planar metal film.

We investigate the enhanced electric dipole–dipole interaction of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) supported by a planar metal film waveguide. By taking two nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center electric dipoles in diamond as an example, both the coupling strength and collective relaxation of two dipoles are studied with the numerical Green Function method. Compared to two-dipole coupling on a planar surface, metal film provides stronger and tunable coupling coefficients. Enhancement of the interaction between coupled NV center dipoles could have applications in both quantum information and energy transfer investigation. Our investigation provides systematic results for experimental applications based on a dipole–dipole interaction mediated with SPPs on a planar metal film. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]