Cooperative emission of light by an ensemble of dipoles near a metal nanoparticle: The plasmonic Dicke effect

We identify a new mechanism for cooperative emission of light by an ensemble of N dipoles near a metal nanostructure supporting a surface plasmon. The cross talk between emitters due to the virtual plasmon exchange leads to the formation of three plasmonic superradiant modes whose radiative decay rates scale with N, while the total radiated energy is thrice that of a single emitter. Our numerical simulations indicate that the plasmonic Dicke effect survives nonradiative losses in the metal.