Transparency in a chain of disparate quantum emitters strongly coupled to a waveguide

Abstract

We demonstrate the emergence of transparent behavior in a chain of periodically spaced nonidentical quantum emitters coupled to a waveguide, in the special case when the nearest neighbor separation is a half-integral multiple of the resonant wavelength, i.e., $kL$ is an integral multiple of $\ensuremath{\pi}$, with $k$ being the wave number and $L$ the spatial periodicity. When equal but opposite frequency detunings are assigned in pairs to a system of even number of atoms, perfect transmission ensues. When the chain size is odd, a similar assignment leads to the disappearance of collective effects as the odd atom determines the spectral behavior. We also manifest the robustness of these features against dissipative effects and show how the spectral behavior hinges significantly on the relative detunings between the atoms as compared to the decay rate. A key distinction from the phenomenon of electromagnetically induced transparency is that in the waveguide case, the presence of an intrinsic waveguide-mediated phase coupling between the atoms strongly affects the transport properties. Furthermore, while reciprocity in single-photon transport does not generally hold due to the phase coupling, we observe an interesting exception for $kL=n\ensuremath{\pi}$ at which the waveguide demonstrates reciprocal behavior with regard to both the transmission and reflection coefficients.