Autonomy in excitation transfer via optical near-field interactions and its implications for information networking

We demonstrate optical excitation transfer in a mixture composed of quantum dots of two different sizes (larger and smaller) networked via optical near-field interactions. For the optical near-field interaction network based on a density matrix formalism, we introduce an optimal mixture that agrees with experimental results. Based on these findings, we theoretically examine the topology-dependent efficiency of optical excitation transfer, which clearly exhibits autonomous, energy-efficient networking behavior occurring at the nanometer scale. We discuss what we can learn from this optical excitation transfer and its implications for information and communications applications.