Towards strong coupling between a single fluorescent molecule and a plasmonic resonator

The unique ability of plasmonic nanostructures to confine light into deep subwavelength volumes gives the opportunity to significantly alter the local density of photonic states (LDOS), boosting light-matter interactions at the nanometric scale. This opens interesting perspectives for fundamental Physics and Nano-optics and for a large range of exciting applications, in particular within the field of Quantum information. The development of widespread quantum technologies strongly depends on the possibility to exploit the highly non linear response of single quantum emitters to obtain reliable single-photon sources and nanometric optical transistors on chip. However, so far this has been prevented at room temperature by the inherently weak interaction between the electromagnetic radiation and single emitters, due to their very weak absorption cross section. In the following I will address how it is possible to reach strong coupling between a dye molecule and the elctromagnetic field of a plasmonic nanocavity, discussing the technical issues observed in the current state-of-the-art as well as the work done during my internship to try and overcome them.