Photon-emission statistics induced by electron tunneling in plasmonic nanojunctions

We investigate the statistics of photons emitted by tunneling electrons in a single electronic level plasmonic nanojunction. We compute the waiting-time distribution of successive emitted photons w(τ). When the cavity damping rate κ is larger than the electronic tunneling rate Γ, we show that in the photon-antibunching regime, w(τ) indicates that the average delay-time between two successive photon emission events is given by 1/Γ. This is in contrast with the usually considered second-order correlation function of emitted photons, g (2) (τ), which displays the single time scale 1/κ. Our analysis shows a relevant example for which w(τ) gives independent information on the photon-emission statistics with respect to g (2) (τ), leading to a physical insight on the problem. We discuss how this information can be extracted from experiments even in presence of a non-perfect photon detection yield.Réactions Chimiques, Transfert de Charges et d'Energie en Cavité ElectromagnétiqueNano-optomécanique en cavité dans le régime de couplage ultrafort.Initiative d'excellence de l'Université de Bordeau