No Arabic abstract
We analyze the coupling of atoms or atom-like emitters to nanophotonic waveguides in the presence of propagating acoustic waves. Specifically, we show that strong index modulations induced by such waves can drastically modify the effective photonic density of states and thereby influence the strength, the directionality, as well as the overall characteristics of photon emission and absorption processes. These effects enable a complete dynamical control of light-matter interactions in waveguide structures, which even in a two dimensional system can be used to efficiently exchange individual photons along selected directions and with a very high fidelity. Such a quantum acousto-optical control provides a versatile tool for various quantum networking applications ranging from the distribution of entanglement via directional emitter-emitter interactions to the routing of individual photonic quantum states via acoustic conveyor belts.
Quantum light-matter interfaces (QLMIs) connecting stationary qubits to photons will enable optical networks for quantum communications, precise global time keeping, photon switching, and studies of fundamental physics. Rare-earth-ion (REI) doped crystals are state-of-the-art materials for optical quantum memories and quantum transducers between optical photons, microwave photons and spin waves. Here we demonstrate coupling of an ensemble of neodymium REIs to photonic nano-cavities fabricated in the yttrium orthosilicate host crystal. Cavity quantum electrodynamics effects including Purcell enhancement (F=42) and dipole-induced transparency are observed on the highly coherent 4I9/2-4F3/2 optical transition. Fluctuations in the cavity transmission due to statistical fine structure of the atomic density are measured, indicating operation at the quantum level. Coherent optical control of cavity-coupled REIs is performed via photon echoes. Long optical coherence times (T2~100 microseconds) and small inhomogeneous broadening are measured for the cavity-coupled REIs, thus demonstrating their potential for on-chip scalable QLMIs.
We show that molecular spin qudits provide an ideal platform to simulate the quantum dynamics of photon fields strongly interacting with matter. The basic unit of the proposed molecular quantum simulator can be realized by a simple dimer of a spin 1/2 and a spin $S$ transition metal ion, solely controlled by microwave pulses. The spin $S$ ion is exploited to encode the photon field in a flexible architecture, which enables the digital simulation of a wide range of spin-boson models much more efficiently than by using a multi-qubit register. The effectiveness of our proposal is demonstrated by numerical simulations using realistic molecular parameters, whose prerequisites delineating possible chemical approaches are also discussed.
We report the development of a superconducting acousto-optic phase modulator fabricated on a lithium niobate substrate. A titanium-diffused optical waveguide is placed in a surface acoustic wave resonator, where the electrodes for mirrors and an interdigitated transducer are made of a superconducting niobium titanium nitride thin film. The device performance is evaluated as a substitute for the current electro-optic modulators, with the same fiber coupling scheme and comparable device size. Operating the device at a cryogenic temperature (T=8K), we observe the length-half-wave-voltage (length-$V_pi$) product of 1.78 V$cdot$cm. Numerical simulation is conducted to reproduce and extrapolate the performance of the device. An optical cavity with mirror coating on the input/output facets of the optical waveguide is tested for further enhancement of the modulation efficiency. A simple extension of the current device is estimated to achieve an efficient modulation with $V_pi=$ 0.27 V.
We demonstrate a multiphoton Rydberg dark resonance where a Lambda-system is coupled to a Rydberg state. This N-type level scheme combines the ability to slow and store light pulses associated with long lived ground state superpositions, with the strongly interacting character of Rydberg states. For the nd_{5/2} Rydberg state in 87Rb (with n=26 or 44) and a beam size of 1 mm we observe a resonance linewidth of less than 100 kHz in a room temperature atomic ensemble limited by transit-time broadening. The resonance is switchable with an electric field of order 1 V/cm. We show that, even when photons with different wavevectors are involved, the resonance can be Doppler-free. Applications in electro-optic switching and photonic phase gates are discussed.
Modern communication networks require high performance and scalable electro-optic modulators that convert electrical signals to optical signals at high speed. Existing lithium niobate modulators have excellent performance but are bulky and prohibitively expensive to scale up. Here we demonstrate scalable and high-performance nanophotonic electro-optic modulators made of single-crystalline lithium niobate microring resonators and micro-Mach-Zehnder interferometers. We show a half-wave electro-optic modulation efficiency of 1.8V$cdot$cm and data rates up to 40 Gbps.