Nanoscale electronics and photonics are among the most promising research
areas providing functional nano-components for data transfer and signal
processing. By adopting metal-based optical antennas as a disruptive
technological vehicle, we demonstrate that these two device-generating
technologies can be interfaced to create an electronically-driven self-emitting
unit. This nanoscale plasmonic transmitter operates by injecting electrons in a
contacted tunneling antenna feedgap. Under certain operating conditions, we
show that the antenna enters a highly nonlinear regime in which the energy of
the emitted photons exceeds the quantum limit imposed by the applied bias. We
propose a model based upon the spontaneous emission of hot electrons that
correctly reproduces the experimental findings. The electron-fed optical
antennas described here are critical devices for interfacing electrons and
photons, enabling thus the development of optical transceivers for on-chip
wireless broadcasting of information at the nanoscale