ELECTRODYNAMICS IN COMPLEX-SYSTEMS - APPLICATION TO NEAR-FIELD PROBING OF OPTICAL MICRORESONATORS

This paper. discusses recent theoretical efforts to develop a general and flexible method for the calculation of the field distributions aro und and inside complex optical systems involving both dielectric and m etallic materials. Starting from the usual light-matter coupling Hamil tonian, we derive a self-consistent equation for the optical field in arbitrary optical systems composed of N different subdomains. We show that an appropriate solving procedure based on the real-space discreti zation of each subdomain raises the present approach to the rank of an accurate predictive numerical scheme. In order to illustrate its appl icability, we use this formalism to address challenging problems relat ed to nonradiative energy transfers in near-field optics. in particula r, we investigate in detail the detuning of a microresonator probed by a near-field optical probe.