No Arabic abstract
The emerging field of on-chip integration of nanophotonic devices and cold atoms offers extremely-strong and pure light-matter interaction schemes, which may have profound impact on quantum information science. In this context, a long-standing obstacle is to achieve strong interaction between single atoms and single photons, while at the same time trap atoms in vacuum at large separation distances from dielectric surfaces. In this work, we study new waveguide geometries that challenge these conflicting objectives. The designed photonic crystal waveguide is expected to offer a good compromise, which additionally allows for easy manipulation of atomic clouds around the structure, while being tolerant to fabrication imperfections.
The spectral dependence of a bending loss of cascaded 60-degree bends in photonic crystal (PhC) waveguides is explored in a slab-type silicon-on-insulator system. Ultra-low bending loss of (0.05+/-0.03)dB/bend is measured at wavelengths corresponding to the nearly dispersionless transmission regime. In contrast, the PhC bend is found to become completely opaque for wavelengths range corresponding to the slow light regime. A general strategy is presented and experimentally verified to optimize the bend design for improved slow light transmission.
Spin-dependent, directional light-matter interactions form the basis of chiral quantum networks. In the solid state, quantum emitters commonly possess circularly polarised optical transitions with spin-dependent handedness. We demonstrate theoretically that spin-dependent chiral coupling can be realised by embedding such an emitter in a waveguide-coupled nanocavity, which supports two near-degenerate, orthogonally-polarised cavity modes. The chiral behaviour arises due to direction-dependent interference between the cavity modes upon coupling to two single-mode output waveguides. Notably, an experimentally realistic cavity design simultaneously supports near-unity chiral contrast, efficient ($beta > 0.95$) waveguide coupling and enhanced light-matter interaction strength (Purcell factor $F_P > 60$). In combination, these parameters could enable the development of highly coherent spin-photon interfaces, and may even allow access to the chiral strong-coupling regime using integrated nano-photonic devices.
We derive a general theory of linear coupling and Kerr nonlinear coupling between modes of dielectric optical resonators from first principles. The treatment is not specific to a particular geometry or choice of mode basis, and can therefore be used as a foundation for describing any phenomenon resulting from any combination of linear coupling, scattering and Kerr nonlinearity, such as bending and surface roughness losses, geometric backscattering, self- and cross-phase modulation, four-wave mixing, third-harmonic generation and Kerr frequency comb generation. The theory is then applied to a translationally symmetric waveguide in order to calculate the evanescent coupling strength to the modes of a microresonator placed nearby, as well as the Kerr self- and cross-phase modulation terms between the modes of the resonator. This is then used to derive a dimensionless equation describing the symmetry-breaking dynamics of two counterpropagating modes of a loop resonator and prove that cross-phase modulation is exactly twice as strong as self-phase modulation only in the case that the two counterpropagating modes are otherwise identical.
Strong interaction between light and matter waves, such as electron beams in electron microscopes, has recently emerged as a new tool for understanding entanglement. Here, we systematically investigate electron-light interactions from first principles. We show that enhanced coupling can be achieved for systems involving slow electron wavepackets interacting with plasmonic nanoparticles, due to simultaneous classical recoil and quantum mechanical photon absorption and emission processes. For slow electrons with longitudinal broadenings longer than the dimensions of nanoparticles, phase-matching between slow electrons and plasmonic oscillations is manifested as an additional degree of freedom to control the strength of coupling. Our findings pave the way towards a systematic and realistic understanding of electron-light interactions beyond adiabatic approximations, and lay the ground for realization of entangled electron-photon systems and Boson-sampling devices involving light and matter waves.
The amplified spontaneous emission from a superluminescent diode was frequency doubled in a periodically poled lithium niobate waveguide crystal. The temporally incoherent radiation of such a superluminescent diode is characterized by a relatively broad spectral bandwidth and thermal-like photon statistics, as the measured degree of second order coherence, g$^{(2)}$(0)=1.9$pm$0.1, indicates. Despite the non-optimized scenario in the spectral domain, we achieve six orders of magnitude higher conversion efficiency than previously reported with truly incoherent light. This is possible by using single spatial mode radiation and quasi phase matched material with a waveguide architecture. This work is a principle step towards efficient frequency conversion of temporally incoherent radiation in one spatial mode to access wavelengths where no radiation from superluminescent diodes is available, especially with tailored quasi phase matched crystals. The frequency doubled light might find use in applications and quantum optics experiments.