Strong coupling of optical nanoantennas and atomic systems

An optical nanoantenna and adjacent atomic systems are strongly coupled when an excitation is repeatedly exchanged between these subsystems prior to its eventual dissipation into the environment. It remains challenging to reach the strong-coupling regime but it is equally rewarding. Once they are achieved, promising applications such as signal processing at the nanoscale and at the single-photon level would immediately become available. Here, we study such hybrid configuration from different perspectives. The configuration we consider consists of two identical atomic systems, described in a two-level approximation, which are strongly coupled to an optical nanoantenna. First, we investigate when this hybrid system requires a fully quantum description, and we provide a simple analytical criterion. Second, a design for a nanoantenna is presented that enables the strong-coupling regime. In addition to a vivid time evolution, the strong coupling is documented in experimentally accessible quantities, such as the extinction spectra. The latter are shown to be strongly modified if the hybrid system is weakly driven and operates in the quantum regime. We find that the extinction spectra depend sensitively on the number of atomic systems coupled to the nanoantenna.