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Frontiers in Optics

An Experimental study of Odd-Order Dispersion Effects in Propagation of Long-Range Surface Plasmon Polaritons Using a Hong-Ou-Mandel Interferometer

Naoto Namekata, Ryo Kobayashi, Takahide Sakaidani, Shuichiro Inoue

Published Jan 1, 2016• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Higher-order dispersion effects on long-range surface plasmon polariton waveguide have been experimentally investigated using the Hong-Ou-Mandel type of quantum interferometer. We observed strong degradation of the quantum indistinguishability which originated from the odd-order dispersions.
DOI
10.1364/fio.2016.jth2a.7

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High-order dispersion of long-range surface-plasmon-polariton waveguides (LR-SPP-WGs) have been investigated using a two-photon interferometer. Since linear and even-ordered dispersions in two-photon interferometry are cancelled out by a nonlocal quantum correlation, odd-ordered dispersions of millimeter-long LR-SPP-WGs are revealed. Even under the highly dispersive condition, the indistinguishability between two photons emerged from LR-SPP-WGs was well preserved. In addition, we demonstrated a strong polarization-selection by the LR-SPP-WGs that leads to the polarization-stable and high-fidelity quantum interference.
We experimentally demonstrated preservation of indistinguishability between two photons via mode conversions, namely, photon-to-plasmon and plasmon-to-photon conversions. A two-photon interference experiment was carried out using a broadband photon pair generated through a spontaneous parametric downconversion process. We observed the so-called Hong-Ou-Mandel dip with an interferometer including a 1-mm-long surface-plasmon-polariton (SPP) waveguide. The photon indistinguishability of 92.4% was retained after propagation in the SPP waveguide.
Surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) result from collective oscillations of free electrons coupled to an electromagnetic field at a plane interface between a metal and a dielectric medium. As photons, SPPs can be considered either as waves or as bosonic particles [1] and they can experience striking quantum interferences such as Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) effect [2]. We use in this paper a plasmonic platform (Fig.1) that can convert photons into plasmons, and separate or recombine them on a plasmonic beamsplitter [3]. Single SPPs are excited using single photons created by parametric down conversion into a periodically-poled KTP crystal. The platform is placed in a Mach-Zehnder interferometer in order to vary the path difference between SPPs before impinging on the beamsplitter. The setup allows us to revisit quantum optics experiments using SPP as carriers of the quantum of energy. Using the same device, we can test the wave-particle duality, two-particle (HOM) interference and non-local control of single plasmon interference using the entanglement between a photon and a SPP [4]. In the case of the HOM experiment, we demonstrate that the losses can be used as a new degree of freedom [5]. Playing with the dephasing between transmission and reflection coefficient of the beamsplitter, we can observe a peak instead of the usually expected dip in the HOM interference (Fig.2), i.e. an anti-coalescence effect of SPP. In this talk, we will introduce the plasmonic device main features as well as the different quantum plasmonics experiments that have been performed thanks to the SPP beamsplitter. These results are essential to understand the SPP quantum behavior or to develop hybrid plasmon-photon systems for potential future applications in quantum communication mediated by SPP. [1] JM Elson and R.H. Ritchie, Phys. Rev. B 4, 4129 (1971) [2] J.S. Fakonas et al., Nat. Phot. 8, 317 (2014) [3] M.C. Dheur et al. , Sc. Advances 2, e151574 (2016) [4] M.C. Dheur et al. ArXiv 1610.07493, B. Vest et al. ArXiv 1610.07479 [5] S. Barnett et al., Phys. Rev. A 57, 2134 (1998) Fig.1: Plasmonic platform used for the quantum optics experiment (B). It consists in two SPP launchers (A), a plasmonic beamsplitter, and two slits to convert SPP to photons in the glass substrate. The plasmonic interference can thus be probed using single photon counting modules. Fig2: HOM experiment on a lossy plasmonic beamsplitter, whose complex amplitude reflection and transmission factors are denoted r and t respectively. The usual HOM dip is observed when r = it (left), a peak in the coincidence rate is shown when r = t.
Light-matter interactions underlie many quantum technologies, yet whether quasiparticles formed from such interactions preserve the full quantum state of light remains unresolved. Surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs), a class of polaritons formed by interacting photons with free-electron oscillations at metal-dielectric interfaces, are prime candidates to explore this question. Here we demonstrate quantum interference between single photons and SPPs using an Au-SiNx_{\mathrm{x}}x​ integrated photonic-plasmonic device. Our results reveal that SPPs retain the indistinguishability of their excitation photons, establishing SPP as a viable quantum information carrier and opening a potential route toward photonic-plasmonic quantum circuitry.
This thesis investigates properties of quantum states of light while travelling as surface plasmon polaritons in plasmonic waveguides and structures. The bosonic nature of SPPs has been shown in previous work by performing a Hong-Ou-Mandel interference experiment with a plasmonic scattering-based beam splitter. Here, we show the same interference with a higher statistical power thanks to an improved set-up. A visibility of 59 ± 1 % is obtained in the two-photon interference, clearly breaking the classical limit of 50 %. The importance of the phase-relations between the different modes in the beam splitter is experimentally probed. The output state of the interference is then further analyzed by a quantum state tomography set-up. This makes it possible to quantify the entanglement generated in the interference. As the interference happens in the plasmonic beam splitter, this shows, to our knowledge for the first time, entanglement generated in a plasmonic structure. Together with the recent results in terms of entanglement and coherence preservation of SPPs, this clearly shows the potential of quantum plasmonic devices. To move into the realm of applications, we also investigate theoretically the enhancements in sensitivity quantum states of light can deliver for plasmonic sensing. It is shown that despite the losses, quantum metrology techniques can be useful in an interferometer with plasmonic waveguides. Considering the strengths and successes of plasmonic sensing techniques in a wide range of fields, we envision that entangled and squeezed states of light will become a new route to push the limits in sensitivity.
A core process in many quantum tasks is the generation of entanglement. It is being actively studied in a variety of physical settings-from simple bipartite systems to complex multipartite systems. In this work we experimentally study the generation of bipartite entanglement in a nanophotonic system. Entanglement is generated via the quantum interference of two surface plasmon polaritons in a beamsplitter structure, i.e., utilizing the Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) effect, and its presence is verified using quantum state tomography. The amount of entanglement is quantified by the concurrence and we find values of up to 0.77 ± 0.04. Verifying entanglement in the output state from HOM interference is a nontrivial task and cannot be inferred from the visibility alone. The techniques we use to verify entanglement could be applied to other types of photonic system and therefore may be useful for the characterization of a range of different nanophotonic quantum devices.