Resonant energy transfer under the influence of the evanescent field from the metal

Amrit Poudel, Xin Chen*, Mark A. Ratner

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

We present a quantum framework based on a density matrix of a dimer system to investigate the quantum dynamics of excitation energy transfer (EET) in the presence of the evanescent field from the metal and the phonon bath. Due to the spatial correlation of the electric field in the vicinity of the metal, the spectral density of the evanescent field is similar to that of a shared phonon bath. However, the EET dynamics under the influence of the evanescent field is an open and a new problem. Here we use a thin metallic film to investigate the effect of the evanescent field on the excitation energy transfer in a dimer system based on a density matrix approach. Our results indicate that a thin metallic film enhances the energy transfer rate at the expense of absorbing energy during the process. Since the spectral density of the evanescent field is affected by the geometry of the medium and the distance of a dimer system from the medium, our results demonstrate the possibility to tune EET based on material geometry and distances. Our model also serves as an expansion to quantum heat engine models and provides a framework to investigate the EET in light harvesting molecular networks under the influence of the evanescent field.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number244115
JournalJournal of Chemical Physics
Volume146
Issue number24
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 28 2017

Funding

A.P. and M.R. were supported as part of the ANSER Center, and Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, under Award No. DE-SC0001059. A.P. and M.R. were also partially supported by the Center for Bio-Inspired Energy Science, an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences under Award No. DE-SC0000989. X.C. would like to acknowledge financial support from the State Key Laboratory of Electrical Insulation and Power Equipment, School of Electrical Engineering, Xian Jiaotong University.

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Physics and Astronomy
  • Physical and Theoretical Chemistry

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