Coupling of a single-photon emitter in nanodiamond to surface plasmons of a nanochannel-enclosed silver nanowire

A finite element method is applied to study the coupling between a nitrogen vacancy (NV) single photon emitter in nanodiamond and surface plasmons in a silver nanowire embedded in an alumina nanochannel template. We investigate the effective parameters in the coupled system and present detailed optimization for the maximum transmitted power at a selected optical frequency (650 nm). The studied parameters include nanowire length, nanowire diameter, distance between the dipole and the nanowire, orientation of the emitter and refractive index of the surrounding. It is found that the diameter of the nanowire has a strong influence on the propagation of the surface plasmon polaritons and emission power from the bottom and top endings of the nanowire. © 2014 Optical Society of America.