No Arabic abstract
We theoretically demonstrate coherent control over propagation of surface plasmon polaritons(SPP), at both telecommunication and visible wavelengths, on a metallic surface adjacent to quantum coherence (phaseonium) medium composed of three-level quantum emitters (semiconductor quantum dots, atoms, rare-earth ions, etc.) embedded in a dielectric host. The coherent drive allows us to provide sufficient gain for lossless SPP propagation and also lowers the pumping requirements. In case of lossy propagation, an order of magnitude enhancement in propagation length can be achieved. Optical control over SPP propagation dynamics via an external coherent drive holds promise for quantum control in the field of nanophotonics.
We demonstrate a novel approach to obtain resonance linewidth below that limited by coherence lifetime. Cross correlation between induced intensity modulation of two lasers coupling the target resonance exhibits a narrow spectrum. 1/30 of the lifetime-limited width was achieved in a proof-of-principle experiment where two ground states are the target resonance levels. Attainable linewidth is only limited by laser shot noise in principle. Experimental results agree with an intuitive analytical model and numerical calculations qualitatively. This technique can be easily implemented and should be applicable to many atomic, molecular and solid state spin systems for spectroscopy, metrology and resonance based sensing and imaging.
Nonreciprocity and one-way propagation of optical signals is crucial for modern nanophotonic technology, and is typically achieved using magneto-optical effects requiring large magnetic biases. Here we suggest a fundamentally novel approach to achieve unidirectional propagation of surface plasmon-polaritons (SPPs) at metal-dielectric interfaces. We employ a direct electric current in metals, which produces a Doppler frequency shift of SPPs due to the uniform drift of electrons. This tilts the SPP dispersion, enabling one-way propagation, as well as zero and negative group velocities. The results are demonstrated for planar interfaces and cylindrical nanowire waveguides.
We develop an effective field theory (EFT) to describe the few- and many-body propagation of one dimensional Rydberg polaritons. We show that the photonic transmission through the Rydberg medium can be found by mapping the propagation problem to a non-equilibrium quench, where the role of time and space are reversed. We include effective range corrections in the EFT and show that they dominate the dynamics near scattering resonances in the presence of deep bound states. Finally, we show how the long-range nature of the Rydberg-Rydberg interactions induces strong effective $N$-body interactions between Rydberg polaritons. These results pave the way towards studying non-perturbative effects in quantum field theories using Rydberg polaritons.
We have observed laser-like emission of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) decoupled to the glass prism in an attenuated total reflection setup. SPPs were excited by optically pumped molecules in a polymeric film deposited on the top of the silver film. Stimulated emission was characterized by a distinct threshold in the input-output dependence and narrowing of the emission spectrum. The observed stimulated emission and corresponding to it compensation of the metallic absorption loss by gain enables many applications of metamaterials and nanoplasmonic devices.
Surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) are collective excitations of free electrons propagating along a metal-dielectric interface. Although some basic quantum properties of SPPs, such as the preservation of entanglement, the wave-particle duality of a single plasmon, the quantum interference of two plasmons, and the verification of entanglement generation, have been shown, more advanced quantum information protocols have yet to be demonstrated with SPPs. Here, we experimentally realize quantum state teleportation between single photons and SPPs. To achieve this, we use polarization-entangled photon pairs, coherent photon-plasmon-photon conversion on a metallic subwavelength hole array, complete Bell-state measurements and an active feed-forward technique. The results of both quantum state and quantum process tomography confirm the quantum nature of the SPP mediated teleportation. An average state fidelity of 0.889$pm$0.004 and a process fidelity of 0.820$pm$0.005, which are well above the classical limit, are achieved. Our work shows that SPPs may be useful for realizing complex quantum protocols in a photonic-plasmonic hybrid quantum network.