A fundamental requirement for photonic technologies is the ability to control the confinement and propagation of light. Widely utilized platforms include 2D optical microcavities in which electromagnetic waves are confined between either metallic or multi-layer distributed Bragg reflector dielectric mirrors. However, the fabrication complexities of thick Bragg reflectors and high losses in metallic mirrors have motivated the quest for efficient and compact mirrors. Recently, 2D transition metal dichalcogenides hosting tightly bound excitons with high optical quality were shown as promising atomically thin mirrors (a, b). In this work, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a sub-wavelength 2D nanocavity using two atomically thin mirrors (c-f). Remarkably, we show how the excitonic nature of the mirrors enables the formation of chiral and tunable cavity modes upon the application of an external magnetic field (g). Our work establishes a new regime for engineering intrinsically chiral sub-wavelength optical cavities and opens avenues for realizing spin-photon interfaces and exploring chiral many-body cavity electrodynamics.
The application of topology in optics has led to a new paradigm in developing photonic devices with robust properties against disorder. Although significant progress on topological phenomena has been achieved in the classical domain, the quantum regime has remained unexplored. In this talk, I discuss two recent developments in the quantum regime:
(1) We demonstrate a strong interface between single quantum emitters and topological photonic states. Our approach creates robust counter-propagating edge states at the boundary of two distinct topological photonic crystals. We demonstrate the chiral emission of a quantum emitter into these modes and establish their robustness against sharp bends. This approach may enable the development of quantum optics devices with built-in protection, with potential applications in quantum simulation and sensing.
(2) Spontaneous parametric processes such as down-conversion (SPDC) and four-wave mixing (SFWM) have long been the common sources of quantum light, for instance, correlated photon pairs and heralded single photon. These spontaneous processes are mediated by vacuum fluctuations of the electromagnetic field. Therefore, by manipulating the electromagnetic mode structure, for example, using nanophotonic systems, one can engineer the spectrum of generated photons. However, such manipulations are susceptible to fabrication disorders which are ubiquitously present in nanophotonic systems.
We demonstrate a topological source of correlated photon pairs where the spectrum of generated photons is robust against fabrication disorder. Specifically, we use the topological edge states to achieve an enhanced and robust generation of photons using SFWM and show that they outperform their topologically-trivial counterparts. We show the non-classical nature of intensity correlations between generated photons and the anti-bunching of photons using conditional measurements. Our results could pave the way for topologically robust quantum photonic devices.
Topological phonics has opened new avenues to designing photonic devices along with opening plethora of applications. Recently even though there has been many interesting studies in topological photonics in classical domain, the quantum regime has still remained largely unexplored. Towards this goal, we developed a topological photonic crystal structure for interfacing single quantum dot spin with photon to realize light matter interaction with topological photonic states. Developed on a thin slab of Gallium Arsenide membrane with electron beam lithography, such a device supports two robust counter-propagating edge states at the boundary of two distinct topological photonic crystals at near-IR wavelength. We show chiral coupling of circularly polarized lights emitted from a single Indium Arsenide quantum dot under strong magnetic field into these topological edge modes. Owing to the topological nature of these guided modes, we demonstrated this photon routing to be robust against sharp corners along the waveguide. Our new technology can pave paths for fault-tolerant photonic circuits, secure quantum computation, exploring unconventional quantum states of light and chiral spin networks.
We study transport of time-bin entangled photon pairs in a 2D topological photonic system of coupled ring resonators. We show that the transport through edge bands preserves temporal correlations of input photons. Furthermore, edge transport is robust against system disorder and only marginally affects the temporal correlations of photons. In contrast, transport through bulk band leads to unwanted bunching/anti-bunching of photons and the probability of bunching/anti-bunching increases with increasing disorder. Finally, we discuss our experimentally efforts to demonstrate the robustness of edge states for quantum transport.
Cold atoms confined inside a hollow-core photonic-crystal fiber with core diameters of a few photon wavelengths
are a promising medium for studying nonlinear optical interactions at extremely low light levels. The high electric
field intensity per photon and interaction lengths not limited by diffraction are some of the unique features of
this system. Here, we present the results of our first nonlinear optics experiments in this system including a
demonstration of an all-optical switch that is activated at energies corresponding to few hundred optical photons
per pulse.
Conference Committee Involvement (8)
Quantum Nanophotonic Materials, Devices, and Systems 2024
20 August 2024 | San Diego, California, United States
Quantum Nanophotonic Materials, Devices, and Systems 2023
23 August 2023 | San Diego, California, United States
Quantum Nanophotonic Materials, Devices, and Systems 2022
22 August 2022 | San Diego, California, United States
Quantum Nanophotonic Materials, Devices, and Systems 2021
2 August 2021 | San Diego, California, United States
Quantum Nanophotonic Materials, Devices, and Systems 2020
24 August 2020 | Online Only, California, United States
Quantum Nanophotonic Materials, Devices, and Systems 2019
14 August 2019 | San Diego, California, United States
Quantum Nanophotonics 2018
20 August 2018 | San Diego, California, United States
Quantum Nanophotonics
7 August 2017 | San Diego, California, United States
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