A lattice of trapped atoms strongly coupled to a one-dimensional nanophotonic waveguide is investigated in exploiting polaritons as natural collective eigenstates. We derive polariton-polariton kinematic interactions by applying a bosonization procedure to transform excitation spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ operators into interacting bosons. In solving the scattering problem we extract the effective potential, which is shown to be modulated by using the excitation-photon detuning as a control parameter. We examine the regime in which polaritons behave as a dilute degenerate boson gas and in the limit where polaritons can be treated as weakly interacting photons we propose the system for realizing superfluidity of photons. We implement the kinematic interaction as a mechanism for nonlinear optical processes that provide an observation tool for the system properties, e.g., the interaction strength produces a blue shift in pump-probe experiments.
A lattice of trapped atoms strongly coupled to a one-dimensional nanophotonic waveguide is investigated in exploiting polaritons as natural collective eigenstates. We derive polariton-polariton kinematic interactions by applying a bosonization procedure to transform excitation spin-21 operators into interacting bosons. In solving the scattering problem we extract the effective potential, which is shown to be modulated by using the excitation-photon detuning as a control parameter. We examine the regime in which polaritons behave as a dilute degenerate boson gas and in the limit where polaritons can be treated as weakly interacting photons we propose the system for realizing superfluidity of photons. We implement the kinematic interaction as a mechanism for nonlinear optical processes that provide an observation tool for the system properties, e.g., the interaction strength produces a blue shift in pump-probe experiments.
We theoretically investigate the quantum scattering of a weak coherent input field interacting with an ensemble of $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}$-type three-level atoms coupled to a one-dimensional waveguide. With an effective non-Hermitian Hamiltonian, we study the collective interaction between the atoms mediated by the waveguide mode. In our scheme, the atoms are randomly placed in the lattice along the axis of the one-dimensional waveguide. Many interesting optical properties occur in our waveguide-atom system, such as electromagnetically induced transparency. We quantify the influence of decoherence originating from both dephasing and population relaxation, and analyze the effect of the inhomogeneous broadening on the transport properties of the incident field. Moreover, we observe that strong photon-photon correlation with quantum beats can be generated in the off-resonant case, which provides an effective method for producing nonclassical light in experiment. With remarkable progress in waveguide-emitter systems, our scheme may be experimentally feasible in the near future.
Dark and bright excitons are shown to appear naturally in a linear atomic super-lattice with two atoms per unit cell.In bringing the super-lattice into a strong coupling regime with a one-dimensional nanophotonic waveguide, bright excitons and photons are coherently mixed to form polaritons. Treating excitons as bosons implies a mechanism that forbids two excitations from being in the same atomic state, which is included here through a bosonization procedure with kinematic interactions.Interestingly these interactions couple dark and bright excitons, which we exploit as a new tool for exciting dark states in a controllable way.We suggest a pump-probe experiment where two polaritons scatter into two dark excitons that are found to be correlated and are represented as dark bogolon excitons.The results can be adapted for any super-lattice of active materials; for example, of organic molecules.
Subwavelength arrays of atoms trapped in optical lattices or tweezers are inherently susceptible to deformations: Optomechanical forces displace atoms within their trapping potential and produce lattice distortions, which in turn modify the optical response of the array. We show that this optomechanical coupling hybridizes collective atomic excitations (polaritons) with phonons, forming polaron-polaritons -- the fundamental quasiparticles governing light-matter interactions in arrays of trapped atoms. Using analytical polaron theory and numerical simulations, we find that: (1) phonons can strongly enhance the decay of subradiant states, but also enable their efficient excitation; (2) transport of dark excitations remains remarkably robust even at low trap frequencies, except when a polariton can resonantly scatter phonons; and (3) motion reduces the reflectivity of a two-dimensional atomic mirror; by identifying design principles that mitigate this degradation, we recover reflectivity above 99% under realistic conditions. Our findings lay the foundation for analyzing motional effects in key applications and suggest new ways to harness them in state-of-the-art experiments.
Dark and bright excitons are shown to appear naturally in a linear atomic super-lattice with two atoms per unit cell.In bringing the super-lattice into a strong coupling regime with a onedimensional nanophotonic waveguide, bright excitons and photons are coherently mixed to form polaritons. Treating excitons as bosons implies a mechanism that forbids two excitations from being at the same atomic state, which is included here through a bosonization procedure with kinematic interactions.Interestingly these interactions couple dark and bright excitons, and which we exploit as a new tool for exciting dark states in a controllable way.We suggest a pump-probe experiment where two polaritons scatter into two dark excitons that found to be correlated and are represented as dark bogolon-excitons.The results can be adapted for any super-lattice of active materials, e.g., of organic molecules.
Abstract Photons strongly coupled to material systems constitute a novel system for realizing non-linear optics at the level of individual photons and studying the dynamics of non-equilibrium quantum many-body system. We give a simple physical polariton-picture of the dynamics of photons coupled to a one-dimensional array of two-level atoms. This picture allows a fully analytical description of the dynamics in terms of polariton scattering inside the medium and reflections of the polaritons from the edge of the array. We show that inelastic collisions, previously identified in small systems, also occur in infinite systems and are related to the existence of multiple bands in the dispersion relation. The developed theory constitutes an effective field theory for the dynamics, which can be used for studies of non-linear optics and many-body dynamics. As a specific example we map the system to the Lieb–Liniger model and show that a so-called Tonks–Girardeau gas of photons is a stable eigenstate of the system in the limit of many emitters.
Techniques to controllably interface atoms with quantum optical fields form the basis for many applications in quantum information science. For example, photons are convenient to relay information over large quantum networks, while atoms naturally are physical systems that can process and store this information. Thus far, the available techniques to efficiently couple single photons with atomic media fall into one of the following, mostly independent, categories: i) cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED), where atomic interactions with light are enhanced via a high-finesse cavity, ii) coherent coupling with atomic ensembles exhibiting large optical depths, and iii) the use of fields tightly focused to dimensions smaller than or approaching the scattering cross-section of a single atom. Although remarkable achievements have been made with all of these approaches, a robust, scalable technique remains elusive. Recently, several groups have successfully demonstrated that cold atoms can be trapped near and interfaced with nanophotonic systems, such as hollow-core photonic crystal fibers [1] and tapered nanofibers [2–4]. The traps are well-characterized [2, 3, 5], and the nearly diffraction-limited transverse confinement of optical fields enables ∼ 10% coupling efficiency of a single atom to the fiber [2, 3]. This has already led to remarkable observations of strong light-matter interactions using relatively few atoms and low powers [1]. It has also been proposed that such techniques can be extended to highly configurable photonic crystal waveguides [6]. Together, these efforts raise the intriguing possibility for future nanophotonic systems with tremendous figures of merit, wherein atom-light interactions can be tailored nearly at will. Here, we discuss recent efforts to develop novel techniques to realize strong, controllable atom-photon and photon-photon interactions, which take full advantage of the parameter space afforded by nanophotonic interfaces and are not based upon the extension of existing techniques. As a specific example, we discuss a protocol to achieve “all-atomic” cavity QED [7], as briefly described below. First, we show that although the single-atom coupling to guided modes of a nanophotonic waveguide might be relatively weak, there exist collective modes of a trapped atomic ensemble whose coupling to light is enhanced by the square root of the atom number, √ NA. While collective effects are generally well-known, special consequences emerge in the nanofiber system when the atoms are trapped in a lattice. In particular, collective effects cause such a lattice to act as a near-perfect mirror for an incident field close to resonance. In analogy to cavity QED, we then demonstrate that two sets of atomic mirrors can form an effective cavity, which can greatly enhance the coupling of a single, specially chosen “impurity” atom (or a few impurity atoms) positioned inside. We introduce a novel quantum spin model to describe the atom-light coupling, which allows one to exactly map the atom-nanofiber interface onto the simple and elegant Jaynes-Cummings model of cavity QED [8]. A unique feature of our atomic mirrors compared to conventional cavities is that they have long relaxation times and are highly dispersive. Remarkably, even with very low mirror finesse (F ∼ 10 2 ), this property allows one to attain the “strong coupling” regime of cavity QED, where vacuum Rabi oscillations [9–12] occur between an excited impurity atom and a single “photon” stored in the cavity (or more precisely, in the atomic mirrors). Furthermore, as quantum mechanical objects, these atom mirrors can be used to store quantum information and transfer this information into propagating waveguide modes. These various features can be combined to realize all of the building blocks for scalable quantum information processing.