Seventy years after Dicke’s seminal work, we unveiled a new type of superradiance in molecular aggregates coupled to surface plasmon polaritons, whose collective light emission rate enhancement distinguishably surpasses the well-known Dick’s N scaling law. To explore this phenomenon, we derived a general analytical expression of the superradiance rate in any arbitrary dielectric media, revealing that the rate enhancement can be roughly divided into two factors: “dipole enhancement” and “spectral enhancement”. The former aligns with the classic mechanism of superradiance rate enhnacement in free space, while the latter is a new concept introduced in this study and accounts for the observed giant superradiance in dielectric media. Furthermore, we highlighted the crucial roles of intermolecular dipole-dipole interactions in this extraordinary superradiance enhancement. This research opens up a new direction for exploring superradiance in molecular aggregates within dielectric environments and offers a novel approach for manipulating light emission at the molecular level, with potential applications in developing highly efficient light-emitting devices.
Figure 1: Enhancement of the superradiance rate in molecular aggregates coupled with surface plasmon polaritons.