Relation between absorption and emission directivities for dipoles coupled with optical antennas

摘要

Optical antennas have been widely used to control the absorption and emission properties of dipole emitters. Understanding the relationship between the absorption and emission processes of such dipole emitters in the presence of optical antennas is therefore of fundamental importance. Here we provide an in-depth analysis of the relationship between the absorption and emission directivities of dipoles coupling to optical antennas. We show that, for reciprocal systems, the absorption and emission directivities are identical for a single dipole emitter, and also in the case of multiple dipole emitters when one considers incoherent emission from the emitters. On the other hand, in general, the coherent emission directivities of the dipoles are always different from the absorption directivities in the multiple-dipole case. But there are special situations in the multiple-dipole case where the coherent emission has directivities that are approximately the same as the absorption directivity. This study clarifies the relation between absorption and emission directivities for emitters coupled with optical antennas and may provide useful insights into the design and characterization of optical antennas for various applications.