Tunable hyperbolic metamaterials for brightening single-photon emission
Abstract
Hyperbolic metamaterials (HMMs) are widely used to enhance spontaneous emission through their exceptionally large photonic density of states, yet large Purcell factors (>100) rarely translate into brighter emission, exposing both a practical limitation of HMMs as brightening platforms and a flaw in the Purcell factor itself as a figure of merit. Here we systematically evaluate spontaneous emission enhancement and photon outcoupling in metal-dielectric HMMs (TiO2/Ag and phase-change Sb2S3/Ag) using effective medium theory, transfer matrix calculations, and full-wave FDTD simulations. We show that planar HMMs with Purcell factors exceeding 100 have external quantum efficiencies below 0.01, yielding an actual radiative Purcell factor (PFrad) of only 1-2. Nanopatterning the HMM into a photonic crystal efficiently couples trapped high-k modes into free space, raising PFrad by an order of magnitude. Incorporating the phase-change material Sb2S3 further enables dynamic tuning of the hyperbolic spectral window and active control over emission brightness: an optimized nanostructured design reaches PFrad ~ 10-15 in the near-infrared, with switching contrast exceeding a factor of 15 upon phase transition. These results establish the radiative Purcell factor as a more reliable figure of merit than the conventional Purcell factor for engineering quantum emitters, and provide a practical route toward actively tunable, bright single-photon sources based on hyperbolic metamaterials.
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BibTeX
@misc{karmakar2026tunable,
title = {{Tunable hyperbolic metamaterials for brightening single-photon emission}},
author = {Manobina Karmakar and Pavel Klok and Filip Ligmajer and Leonardo de S. Menezes},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.30179},
eprint = {2609.30179},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.30179},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Tunable hyperbolic metamaterials for brightening single-photon emission
AU - Manobina Karmakar
AU - Pavel Klok
AU - Filip Ligmajer
AU - Leonardo de S. Menezes
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/12
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.30179
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.30179
AB - Hyperbolic metamaterials (HMMs) are widely used to enhance spontaneous emission through their exceptionally large photonic density of states, yet large Purcell factors (>100) rarely translate into brighter emission, exposing both a practical limitation of HMMs as brightening platforms and a flaw in the Purcell factor itself as a figure of merit. Here we systematically evaluate spontaneous emission enhancement and photon outcoupling in metal-dielectric HMMs (TiO_2/Ag and phase-change Sb_2S_3/Ag) using effective medium theory, transfer matrix calculations, and full-wave FDTD simulations. We show that planar HMMs with Purcell factors exceeding 100 have external quantum efficiencies below 0.01, yielding an actual radiative Purcell factor (PF_rad) of only 1-2. Nanopatterning the HMM into a photonic crystal efficiently couples trapped high-k modes into free space, raising PF_rad by an order of magnitude. Incorporating the phase-change material Sb_2S_3 further enables dynamic tuning of the hyperbolic spectral window and active control over emission brightness: an optimized nanostructured design reaches PF_rad ~ 10-15 in the near-infrared, with switching contrast exceeding a factor of 15 upon phase transition. These results establish the radiative Purcell factor as a more reliable figure of merit than the conventional Purcell factor for engineering quantum emitters, and provide a practical route toward actively tunable, bright single-photon sources based on hyperbolic metamaterials.
ER -