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Physical review. B, Condensed matter

Optical photonic band gaps and the Lamb shift

Zhiyuan Li, Younan Xia A

Published Mar 6, 2001• 23 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A three-dimensional photonic band gap (PBG) at optical wavelengths can significantly alter atomic spontaneous emission. However, a rigorous solution based on a full vectorial quantum electrodynamics shows that the Lamb shift for atomic hydrogen embedded in such a PBG differs negligibly from the value in vacuum. This is significantly contrasted with previous conclusions of an anomalous Lamb shift or an extraordinarily small Lamb shift, which were drawn based on scalar models.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.63.121305

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International Journal of Physics•Mar 2, 2023•0 citations
A three-dimensional photonic band gap (PBG) at optical wavelengths can significantly alter atomic spontaneous emission. However, a rigorous solution based on a full vectorial quantum electrodynamics shows that the Lamb shift for atomic hydrogen embedded in such a PBG differs negligibly from the value in vacuum. This is significantly contrasted with previous conclusions of an anomalous Lamb shift or an extraordinarily small Lamb shift, which were drawn based on scalar models.
The effect of atomic position on the spontaneous emission and optical spectra of a three-level atom embedded in a photonic crystal was studied by considering the coherent two-band photonic-band-gap (PBG) reservoir. With the definite phase difference between the fields of the air band and dielectric band in this coherent PBG reservoir, we found that this coherent property grows stronger and results in the spectrum shift and the appearance of dark lines and kinks as the width of band gap gets smaller; and the variation of the atomic position leads to large shift of spectral peak. The averaged spectra of the system with an ensemble of atoms embedded in the dielectric region are blueshifted while those of atoms in the air region are redshifted. The spectra peaks can even shift more than 75% of the half width at half maximum. The feasible experimental systems composed of an ensemble of molecules (quantum dots or fluorescence dye) in photonic crystals are discussed.
It is shown that in dielectrics exhibiting a complete photonic band gap, quantum electrodynamics predicts the occurrence of bound states of photons to hydrogenic atoms. When the atomic transition frequency lies near a photonic band edge, the excited atomic level experiences an anomalous Lamb shift and splits into a doublet. One member of this doublet exhibits resonance fluorescence whereas the other level is dressed by the emission and reabsorption of near-resonant photons whose amplitude decays exponentially from the vicinity of the atom.
Spontaneous emission in photonic crystals with anisotropic three-dimensional dispersion relation is studied. If the upper level is below a characteristic frequency omega(1), or above omega(2), or between omega(1) and omega(2), the radiation is a localized field with a frequency in the band gap, or a propagating field with a frquency in the band, or a diffusion field, respectively. An analytical expression for the Lamb shift is obtained. The Lamb shift for the current case is small compared to that in an ordinary vacuum or in one- or two-dimensional photonic crystals due to lower density of states.
Quantum electrodynamics of atom spontaneous emission from a three-dimensional photonic crystal is studied in a full vectorial framework. The electromagnetic fields are quantized via solving the eigenproblem of photonic crystals with use of a plane-wave expansion method. It is found that the photon density of states and local density of states (LDOS) with a full band gap vary slowly near the edge of band gap, in significant contrast to the singular character predicted by the previous isotropic model. Therefore, the spontaneous emission can be solved by conventional Weisskopf-Wigner approximate theory, which yields a pure exponentially decaying behavior with a rate proportional to the LDOS.
We describe the quantum electrodynamics of photons interacting with hydrogenic atoms and molecules in a class of strongly scattering dielectric materials. These dielectrics consist of an ordered or nearly ordered array of spherical scatterers with real positive refractive index and exhibit a complete photonic band gap or pseudogap for all directions of electromagnetic propagation. For hydrogenic atoms with a transition frequency in the forbidden optical gap, we demonstrate both the existence and stability of a photon-atom bound state. For a band gap to center frequency ratio \ensuremath{\Delta}\ensuremath{\omega}/${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\omega}}}_{0}$\ensuremath{\sim}5%, the photon localization length ${\ensuremath{\xi}}_{\mathrm{loc}}$\ensuremath{\ge}10L, where L is the lattice constant of dielectric array. This strong self-dressing of the atom by its own localized radiation field leads to anomalous Lamb shifts and a splitting of the excited atomic level into a doublet when the transition frequency lies near a photonic band edge. We estimate the magnitude of this splitting to be ${10}^{\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}6}$ at the vacuum transition energies.The stability of this photon-bound state with respect to electromagnetic as well as vibrational decay mechanisms is examined. For an isolated molecule embedded in the solid fraction of the dielectric structure, the dominant mechanism for absorption and spontaneous emission is via optically driven electron-phonon interactions and the resulting phonon-absorption and -emission sidebands. Raman or Brillouin scattering of a localized photon into a propagating mode, or vice versa, directly by photon-phonon interaction is forbidden. For atoms not in contact with the solid fraction of the dielectric host, the electromagnetic two-photon spontaneous emission rate is on the scale of several days. For two identical atoms separated by a distance R within the photonic band gap, energy transfer from an excited atom to an unexcited atom occurs by a phase-shifted resonance dipole-dipole interaction which vanishes exponentially for R>${\ensuremath{\xi}}_{\mathrm{loc}}$. This leads to the formation of a narrow photonic impurity band within the gap when a finite density of atoms is present. This impurity band exhibits a different kind of nonlinear optical properties. When two neighboring atoms are both excited, single-photon spontaneous emission at \ensuremath{\sim}2\ensuremath{\Elzxh}${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\omega}}}_{0}$ occurs by a third-order electromagnetic process with rate \ensuremath{\Gamma}\ensuremath{\sim}${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\alpha}}}^{3}$${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\omega}}}_{0}$(a0{\mathit{a}}_{0}a0​/R)8{)}^{8})8, where a0{\mathit{a}}_{0}a0​ is the atomic Bohr radius and \ensuremath{\alpha} is the fine-structure constant.
The novel dynamical and spectral features of (single photon) spontaneous emission from an atomic transition near a photonic band edge are investigated by frustrating these features by spontaneous emission through another atomic transition far from the photonic band edge and deep in the photon continuum, the two atomic transitions forming the two dipole-allowed transitions of a three-level atom in a Λ configuration. Though spontaneous emission through the atomic transition far from the photonic band edge (the “far” transition) is not directly affected by the photonic band gap (PBG), it is indirectly affected by the PBG through its coupling to the atomic transition near the photonic band edge (the “near” transition) via the Λ configuration. As a result of this coupling, spontaneous emission through the “far” transition can be used as a probe to measure the strength of the effects of the PBG on spontaneous emission through the “near” transition. We have shown that the effects of the PBG on spontaneous emission via the “near” transition are strongly affected (and, therefore, can be controlled by) not only by the detuning of the “near” transition from photonic band edge but also by the vacuum decay rate of spontaneous emission through the “far” transition which is coupled to the “near” transition through the Λ configuration. In particular, we have shown that the oscillatory behavior of spontaneous emission near a photonic band edge as well as the Autler-Townes doublet of the spontaneous emission spectrum (due to the splitting of the atomic level near the photonic band edge) are strongly dependent on the decay rate of spontaneous emission through the probe transition which is far from the band edge.