Optical analogs of correlated-tunneling phenomena

Stefano Longhi

Waveguides: Basic Equations...............................................................................................312 13.3 Coherent Destruction of Optical Tunneling ..........................................................................314 13.4 Optical Analog of Field-Induced Barrier Transparency........................................................316 13.5 Coherent Photonic Tunneling by Adiabatic Passage.............................................................319 13.6 Photonic Tunneling in Optical Lattices: Optical Analog of the Quantum Zeno Effect ....................................................................................325 13.7 Photonic Landau-Zener Tunneling .......................................................................................331 13.8 Conclusions ...........................................................................................................................333 References......................................................................................................................................334 Tunneling is a universal phenomenon to wave physics which arises when an evanescent field transfers energy through a barrier to a region where a propagating wave is allowed. Tunneling phenomena have been predicted and observed in countless quantum and classical physical systems. In particular, optical (or photonic) tunneling usually refers to light propagation across forbidden photonic barriers, such as in photonic band gap structures or undersized waveguides, as well as to evanescent field coupling among waveguides or resonators or to light passage via evanescent coupling in frustrated total internal reflection (FTIR). The first observation of FTIR and of photonic tunneling date back to three centuries ago, when Newton reported on light transmission through a gap between prisms. Nowadays, FTIR at plane interfaces is generally viewed as an optical analog of quantum mechanical tunneling across a one-dimensional potential barrier [1]. Optical tunneling across photonic barriers, realized by for example, FTIR or photonic band gaps, has attracted a great deal of attention in the past two decades as an experimentally accessible system with which to measure tunneling times [2-7]. FTIR has been also exploited to study wave packet reshaping [8] and to provide an optical realization of curious quantum-mechanical effects such as quantum evaporation [9]. Similarly, photonic tunneling in spherical dielectric media has been proposed as an optical analog of nuclear decay arising form particle escape from a three-dimensional potential well [10]. In deformed dielectric microcavities, chaos-assisted tunneling phenomena have been investigated as well [11-14]. A different optical system that provides an experimentally accessible laboratory tool to visualize and control photonic tunneling, which is at the focus of this chapter, is represented

Daniel D. Powell, Joshua M. Grossman

R. Y. Chiao, Paul G. Kwiat, Aephraim M. Steinberg

Stefano Longhi

Abstract Engineered photonic waveguides have provided in the past decade an extremely rich laboratory tool to visualize with optical waves the classic analogues of a wide variety of coherent quantum phenomena encountered in atomic, molecular or condensed‐matter physics. As compared to quantum systems, optics offers the rather unique advantage of a direct mapping of the wave function evolution in coordinate space by simple fluorescence imaging or scanning tunneling optical microscopy techniques. In this contribution recent theoretical and experimental advances in the field of quantum‐optical analogies are reviewed. Special attention is devoted to some relevant optical analogies based on the use of curved photonic structures, including: coherent destruction of tunneling in driven bistable potentials; coherent population transfer and adiabatic passage in laser‐driven multilevel atomic systems; quantum decay control and Zeno dynamics; electronic Bloch oscillations and Zener tunneling, Anderson localization and dynamic localization in crystalline potentials.

Harry F. Meiners

I. Vorobeichik, Edvardas Narevicius, Gershon Rosenblum +2 more

We report on tunneling enhancement in a periodically perturbed double well system. The double well system was realized by a structure of two optical waveguides. The transfer of light power from one waveguide to the another as induced by the periodic variations of the waveguide geometry was investigated. Our experimental measurements show that, in the presence of periodic perturbation, this transfer of light power can be enhanced by more than 500 times. We use an analogy between electromagnetic wave optics and the quantum wave phenomena to provide an experimental support to the theoretical model of tunneling enhancement of a quantum particle, facilitated by its interaction with auxiliary quantum states.