When excitons and plasmons meet: Emerging function through synthesis and assembly

To meet the challenge of precise nanoscale arrangement of emitter and plasmonic nanoantenna, synthesis and assembly methods continue to evolve in accuracy and reproducibility. This article reviews some of the many strategies being developed for "soft" chemical approaches to precision integration and assembly. We also discuss investigations of the Purcell effect, emission directionality control, and near-unity collection efficiency of photons, emitter-emitter coupling, and higher-order emission processes that have been most deeply explored using individual-emitter- (or several-emitter-) nanoantenna pairs fabricated using traditional lithographic methods or dynamically and controllably manipulated using scanning probe methods. Importantly, these results along with theoretical analyses inspire and motivate continued advancements in large-scale synthesis and assembly. We emphasize assembly approaches that have been used to create nanosemiconductor-nanometal hybrids and, in particular, those that have afforded specific plasmonic effects on excitonic properties. We also review direct-synthesis and chemical-linker strategies to creating discrete, though less spatially extended, semiconductor-metal interactions.