title: Controlled coupling of a single nitrogen-vacancy center to a silver nanowire.
abstract: We report on the controlled coupling of a single nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center to a surface plasmon mode propagating along a chemically grown silver nanowire (NW). We locate and optically characterize a single NV center in a uniform dielectric environment before we controllably position this emitter in the close proximity of the NW. We are thus able to control the coupling of this particular emitter to the NW and directly compare the photon emission properties before and after the coupling. The excitation of single plasmonic modes is witnessed and a total rate enhancement by a factor of up to 4.6 is demonstrated.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark.
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Huck
authors.forename: Shailesh
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kumar
authors.forename: Abdul
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Shakoor
authors.forename: Ulrik L
authors.initials: UL
authors.lastname: Andersen