Impedance of a Nanoantenna and a Single Quantum Emitter

Antennas are widely used by electrical engineers to enhance the coupling between propagating waves and electric sources or detectors. It is thus tempting to develop an optical analog to tailor visible light emission or absorption by an atom or a molecule. This idea has been put forward recently and it has been demonstrated that both the radiative rate and the emission pattern of optical emitters can be modified by metallic nanostructures. In this Letter, we introduce the concept of impedance for a nanoantenna and for two-level systems or nanoparticles described by electric dipole moments. We show how these concepts can be used to reconcile different descriptions and also to optimize nanoantennas.