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Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE

Metasurface-enabled quantum vacuum effects over macroscopic distances (Presentation Recording)

Pankaj Kumar Jha, Xingjie Ni, Chihhui Wu, Yuan Wang, Xiang Zhang

Published Oct 5, 2015• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Quantum vacuum engineering is an active field of research. Here we use recent advances in the field of metasurface (2D-array of sub-wavelength scale nano-antennas) to construct an anisotropic quantum vacuum (AQV) in the vicinity of a quantum emitter located at some macroscopic distance from the metasurface. Such AQV can induce quantum interference among several atomic transitions, even when the transition dipole moment corresponding to the decay channels are orthogonal. Recently, there have been few theoretical proposal to use metamaterials to engineer the back-action. All these approaches, which works in the near field (few tens of nanometers from the surface), suffers from trapping an atom at these distance, surface interactions like quenching, Casimir force etc. Hence it’s pivotal to construct the back-action over macroscopic distance. We harness the polarization dependent response of a metasurface to engineer the back-action of the spontaneous emission from the atom to itself. We show strong anisotropy in the decay rate of a quantum emitter which is a manifestation of AQV. Engineering light-matter interaction over macroscopic distances opens new possibilities for long-range interaction between quantum emitters for quantum information processing, spin-optics/spintronics etc.

DOI
10.1117/12.2187434

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Quantum vacuum engineering is an active field of research. Here we use recent advances in the field of metasurface (2D-array of sub-wavelength scale nano-antennas) to construct an anisotropic quantum vacuum (AQV) in the vicinity of a quantum emitter located at some macroscopic distance from the metasurface. Such AQV can induce quantum interference among several atomic transitions, even when the transition dipole moment corresponding to the decay channels are orthogonal. Recently, there have been few theoretical proposal to use metamaterials to engineer the back-action. All these approaches, which works in the near field (few tens of nanometers from the surface), suffers from trapping an atom at these distance, surface interactions like quenching, Casimir force etc. Hence it’s pivotal to construct the back-action over macroscopic distance. We harness the polarization dependent response of a metasurface to engineer the back-action of the spontaneous emission from the atom to itself. We show strong anisotropy in the decay rate of a quantum emitter which is a manifestation of AQV. Engineering light-matter interaction over macroscopic distances opens new possibilities for long-range interaction between quantum emitters for quantum information processing, spin-optics/spintronics etc.
An anisotropic quantum vacuum (AQV) opens novel pathways for controlling light-matter interaction in quantum optics, condensed matter physics, etc. Here, we theoretically demonstrate a strong AQV over macroscopic distances enabled by a judiciously designed array of subwavelength-scale nanoantennas-a metasurface. We harness the phase-control ability and the polarization-dependent response of the metasurface to achieve strong anisotropy in the decay rate of a quantum emitter located over distances of hundreds of wavelengths. Such an AQV induces quantum interference among radiative decay channels in an atom with orthogonal transitions. Quantum vacuum engineering with metasurfaces holds promise for exploring new paradigms of long-range light-matter interaction for atom optics, solid-state quantum optics, quantum information processing, etc.
An anisotropic quantum vacuum (AQV) has been predicted to induce quantum interferences during the spontaneous emission process in an atomic VVV transition [G. S. Agarwal, Phys. Rev. Lett. 84, 5500 (2000)]. Nevertheless, the finite lifetime of the excited states is expected to strongly limit the observability of this phenomenon. In this paper, we predict that an AQV can induce a long-lifetime coherence in an atomic $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}$ transition from the process of spontaneous emission, which has an additional advantage of removing the need for coherent laser excitation. We also carry out two metasurface designs and compare their respective efficiencies for creating an AQV over remote distances. The detection of this coherence induced by a metasurface, in addition to being yet another vindication of quantum electrodynamics, could pave the way towards the remote distance control of coherent coupling between quantum emitters, which is a key requirement to produce entanglement in quantum technology applications.
We propose novel quantum antennas and metamaterials with a strong magnetic response at optical frequencies. Our design is based on the arrangement of natural quantum emitters with only electric dipole transition moments at distances smaller than a wavelength of light but much larger than their physical size. In particular, we show that an atomic dimer can serve as a magnetic antenna at its antisymmetric mode to enhance the decay rate of a magnetic transition in its vicinity by several orders of magnitude. Furthermore, we study metasurfaces composed of atomic bilayers with and without cavities and show that they can fully reflect the electric and magnetic fields of light, thus, forming nearly perfect electric or magnetic mirrors. The proposed metamaterials will embody the intrinsic quantum functionalities of natural emitters such as atoms, ions, color center, or molecules and can be fabricated with available state-of-the-art technologies, promising several applications both in classical optics and quantum engineering.
Within the framework of macroscopic quantum electrodynamics, we investigate both the radiation force and the potential of Casimir-Polder type acting on an excited cold two-level atom in a cavity made of left-handed materials and topological insulators. As the time-reversal symmetry is broken on the surface of the topological insulators, the spontaneous emission of the atom placed near the focus point(s) exhibits anisotropic properties. While the potential wells are normally shallow for topological trivial dielectric, they may be amplified in the presence of topological magnetoelectric effect. We find that when there exists only one focus point in the cavity, it is possible to boost the forces or the potential wells by up to one order of magnitude. Meanwhile, the lifetime of the atom could be prolonged owing to the focus effect of the left-handed materials, where the emitted photons can trace back to the atom and reabsorbed by itself. Our results indicate the possibility in forming long-lived potential wells, which may have potential applications in trapping and guiding cold atoms far away from the surface.
In this work we focus on studying the temporal dynamics of a V-type quantum emitter with two excited states, which allows to observe an interplay between different spontaneous emission channels. We show that the presence of an anisotropic metasurface enables an interaction between the two active transitions and makes it possible to achieve a strong coupling regime. We also show that if the rotation plane of the transition dipole moments is arbitrarily oriented with respect to the metasurface interface, it is possible to observe a non-reciprocal behavior.
The spontaneous decay and quantum interference of a V\mathsf{V}V-type Zeeman atom placed near a $\ensuremath{\mu}$-negative metamaterial (MNG) slab are investigated. Based on the fact that MNG slab supports only TE-polarized surface-plasmon polariton (SPP) modes, the decay rate of the dipole component parallel to the interface would be much larger than that normal to the interface, because one can couple while another decouple to TE modes. Consequently, high-level anisotropic environment is created and the two dipoles can interfere with each other strongly by sharing such SPP modes even if they are orthogonal. In our work, we analyze the influence of the parameters of the MNG slab as well as the atomic location on the interference intensity in detail. In addition, the dissipation of the slab is considered, and the quantum interference is still excellent even with large absorption.