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Collective eigenstates of emission in an N-entity heterostructure and the evaluation of its Green tensors and self-energy components

Our understanding of emission from a collection of emitters strongly interacting among them and also with other polarizable matter in proximity has been approximated by independent emission from the emitters. This is primarily due to our inability to evaluate the self-energy matrices and the collective eigenstates of emitters in heterogeneous ensembles. A method to evaluate the self-energy matrices that is not limited by the geometry and the material composition is presented here to understand and exploit such collective excitations. Numerical evaluations using this method are used to highlight the significant differences between independent and the collective modes of emission in heterostructures. A set of n emitters driving each other and m other polarizable entities, where N=m+n, is used to represent the coupled system of a generalized geometry in a volume integral approach. Closed form relations between the Green tensors of entity pairs in free space and their correspondents in a heterostructure are derived concisely. This is made possible for general geometries because the global matrices consisting of all free-space Green dyads are subject to conservation laws. The self-energy matrix of the emitters can then be assembled using the evaluated Green tensors of the heterostructure, but a decomposition of its components into their radiative and non-radiative decay contributions is non-trivial. This is accomplished using matrix decomposition identities applied to the global matrices containing all free-space dyads. The relations to compute the observables of the eigenstates (such as quantum efficiency, power/energy of emission, radiative and non-radiative decay rates) are presented. We conclude with a note on extension of this method to collective excitations that also include strong interactions with a surface in the near-field.