Color Routing and Beam Steering of Single-Molecule Emission with a Spherical Silicon Nanoantenna

Abstract: Single-photon emitters radiate as electric dipoles, which limits light collection efficiency and complicates integration into flat photonic devices. Developing nanophotonic structures capable of directing photon emission with tunable angular distributions in the visible spectrum has been pursued for applications ranging from integrated optical systems to discrimination of molecular species. To date, such directional control has been achieved using components whose overall footprint is larger than the emission wavelength and often rely on lossy plasmonic components. Here, we employ the DNA origami technique for deterministic nanoscale assembly, positioning single fluorophores in nanometric proximity to a single silicon spherical nanoparticle and demonstrate unidirectional emission with forward-to-backward intensity ratios up to ~7 dB. Furthermore, we show that a single silicon nanosphere antenna can function as a color router or a beam steerer depending on its size, emitter spectral range and emitter-nanoparticle distance.