Long-range dipole-dipole interaction and anomalous F\"orster energy transfer across a hyperbolic metamaterial

Long-range dipole-dipole interaction and anomalous Förster energy transfer across a hyperbolic metamaterial

S.-A. Biehs, Vinod M. Menon, and G. S. Agarwal

Phys. Rev. B 93, 245439 – Published 30 June 2016

Abstract

We study radiative energy transfer between a donor-acceptor pair across a hyperbolic metamaterial slab. We show that similar to a perfect lens a hyperbolic lens allows for giant energy transfer rates. For a realistic realization of a hyperbolic multilayer metamaterial we find an enhancement of up to three orders of magnitude with respect to the transfer rates across a plasmonic silver film of the same size especially for frequencies which coincide with the epsilon-near zero and the epsilon-near pole frequencies. Furthermore, we compare exact results based on the $S$ -matrix method with results obtained from effective medium theory. Our finding of very large dipole-dipole interaction at distances of the order of a wavelength has important consequences for producing radiative heat transfer, quantum entanglement, etc.