Enhancement of electric and magnetic dipole transition of rare-earth-doped thin films tailored by high-index dielectric nanostructures

We propose a simple experimental technique to separately map the emission from electric and magnetic dipole transitions close to single dielectric nanostructures, using a few-nanometer thin film of rare-earth-ion-doped clusters. Rare-earth ions provide electric and magnetic dipole transitions of similar magnitude. By recording the photoluminescence from the deposited layer excited by a focused laser beam, we are able to simultaneously map the electric and magnetic emission enhancement on individual nanostructures. In spite of being a diffraction-limited far-field method with a spatial resolution of a few hundred nanometers, our approach appeals by its simplicity and high signal-to-noise ratio. We demonstrate our technique at the example of single silicon nanorods and dimers, in which we find a significant separation of electric and magnetic near-field contributions. Our method paves the way towards the efficient and rapid characterization of the electric and magnetic optical response of complex photonic nanostructures.