Emission enhancement and polarization of semiconductor quantum dots with nanoimprinted plasmonic cavities: towards scalable fabrication of plasmon-exciton displays

Here we present an application of a high throughput nanofabrication technique to the creation of a plasmonic metasurface and demonstrate its application to the enhancement and control of radiation by quantum dots (QDs). The metasurface consists of an array of cold-forged rectangular nanocavities in a thin silver film. High quantum efficiency graded alloy CdSe/CdS/ZnS quantum dots were spread over the metasurface and the effects of the plasmon-exciton interactions characterised. We found a four-fold increase in the QDs radiative decay rate and emission brightness, compared to QDs on glass, along with a degree of linear polarisation of 0.73 in the emitted field. Such a surface could be easily integrated with current QD display or organic solar cell designs.