Fig. 2. In situ laser etching for the deterministic assembly of single-emitter plasmonic antenna nanostructures.

Figures (a–e) illustrate the in situ laser etching protocol used to fabricate the antennas (see the details in the text). The image at the top right of (a) shows a confocal image of the emission from a QD, and the image on the top of (b) shows the AFM topography and height profile of a hole etched by the laser into the resist bi-layer. The undercut created by the selective etching of the LOR (c) allows the lift-off in step (d) of the lithography to produce the single-emitter antennas (e). The image above (e) depicts the AFM image and corresponding height profile of a fabricated antenna patch. f Emission lifetime of a QD before (blue) and after (red) laser etching