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Physical Review A

Interaction of a dielectric waveguide mode with a resonant scatterer: Scattering properties, propelling force, and torque

Alexey V. Maslov

Published Apr 7, 2022• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A system of a resonant scatterer described as a two-level atom coupled to a circular dielectric waveguide is studied. The system is characterized by the scattering properties of a guided mode (guided transmission and reflection, bulk radiation) and optomechanical properties (propelling force and torque on the scatterer). The results are based on a self-consistent solution of the scattering problem using the Green's functions and cover the cases of scatterers inside and outside waveguides. It is shown that while a scatterer with a fixed dipole orientation gives rise to scattering spectra described by Lorentzian line shapes, an isotropic scatterer can produce non-Lorentzian line shapes. The parameters defining the line shape are analyzed. The complicated line shapes are likely to arise in the coherent characterization of an emerging class of photonic devices based on photon emitters coupled to well-confined modes of dielectric waveguides. It is obtained that the propelling force and axial torque on the scatterer at resonance can be directly expressed in terms of the spontaneous emission coupling factor $(\ensuremath{\beta})$ of the system. The balances of the linear and angular momentum in the system are discussed. Numerical results are presented for strongly confined guided modes which allow efficient mode scattering and conversion of the linear and angular mode momentum to the force and torque, respectively.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.105.043503

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•Jan 1, 2000•0 citations
A system of a resonant scatterer described as a two-level atom coupled to a circular dielectric waveguide is studied. The system is characterized by the scattering properties of a guided mode (guided transmission and reflection, bulk radiation) and optomechanical properties (propelling force and torque on the scatterer). The results are based on a self-consistent solution of the scattering problem using the Green's functions and cover the cases of scatterers inside and outside waveguides. It is shown that while a scatterer with a fixed dipole orientation gives rise to scattering spectra described by Lorentzian line shapes, an isotropic scatterer can produce non-Lorentzian line shapes. The parameters defining the line shape are analyzed. The complicated line shapes are likely to arise in the coherent characterization of an emerging class of photonic devices based on photon emitters coupled to well-confined modes of dielectric waveguides. It is obtained that the propelling force and axial torque on the scatterer at resonance can be directly expressed in terms of the spontaneous emission coupling factor (\ensuremathβ)(\ensuremath{\beta})(\ensuremathβ) of the system. The balances of the linear and angular momentum in the system are discussed. Numerical results are presented for strongly confined guided modes which allow efficient mode scattering and conversion of the linear and angular mode momentum to the force and torque, respectively.
The motion of atoms inside a long hollow cylindrical waveguide with a circular cross section is investigated. The guide is assumed to have subwavelength dimensions, in which case the spontaneous decay process is effected only by emission of a few possible cavity modes. The characteristics of the atomic motion in the guide are explored in the presence of an excited waveguide mode. We show that the atomic motion in this case is determined by an axial channelling force and a trapping dipole force, plus a quantized light torque associated with the orbital angular momentum property of excited waveguide modes of order l>0.\mathcal{l}>0.l>0. It is predicted that in addition to its axial motion, an atom subject to such a mode should be trapped radially in a vibrational state and should exhibit interesting rotational features due to the light torque, including a rotational frequency shift.
Exploring the spontaneous emission control of an excited two-level atom interacting with the vacuum within a circular waveguide surrounded by a perfect electric conductor is the main objective of this work. This type of emission is dependent on the intrinsic properties of the emitter, such as the emitter’s transition frequency and dipole moment direction, as well as the surrounding electromagnetic environment. Due to being statistical in nature, the fields do not have a well-defined phase, and thus the emission is considered incoherent or in an uncontrollable direction. We propose an approach to direct the emission from an atom embedded in a circular waveguide . To achieve this, multimode waveguides should be excluded because the total emission is simply presented in three orthogonal directions. In contrast, with mono-mode waveguides, the single photon transports in a single-mode waveguide coupled to a cavity embedded with an atom. Thus, the electric dipole moment vector is forced to take the direction of the only mode in which it is allowed to propagate. Besides giving rise to a single value for the emission, this also provides a way to control direction. Such waveguides have already been produced by recent advances in microfabrication technology.
In this work we study the spontaneous emission of a two-level atom placed inside a hollow cylindrical waveguide of infinite length and with perfectly electric conducting walls. The atom, whose electric dipole moment is assumed to be oriented along the symmetry axis of the waveguide, couples to a photonic band structure with a non-linear dispersion relation. We address two different regimes of coupling between the atom and the photonic band structure. In particular, we refer to the regime where the internal frequency of the a.tom is close to a band edge as the strong coupling regime and to the regime where the internal frequency is far from a band edge as the weak coupling regime. In the weak coupling regime, we find that the a.tom decays exponentially with a modified decayed rate due to the presence of the waveguide, and that the line-shape of the emitted photons within every band takes the form of a Lorentzian. In the strong coupling regime, we find a non-exponential decay of the atom, which is due to non-Markovian dynamics of the system. Moreover, the population of the atom presents oscillations in time and it converges to a non-zero positive value, indicating that the a.tom never fully decays. In this regime the spectrum of the emitted photons becomes more involved.
Spontaneous emission from two two-level atoms within an anisotropic photonic crystal is investigated when direct dipole-dipole interaction is taken into account. The radiation properties of the present two atoms system are similar to that of a V-type three-level atom embedded in an anisotropic photonic crystal. The direct dipole-dipole interaction can enhance or depress the spontaneous emission depending on the relative position of the upper levels from the band edge of the photonic crystals. Owing to quantum interference and the dipole-dipole interaction, the spontaneous emission spectra are complicated non-Lorentzian shapes and depend strongly on the relative position of the upper levels from the bandgap and the initial state of the system.
In a preceding paper we introduced a formalism to study the scattering of low-intensity fields from a system of multilevel emitters embedded in a three-dimensional (3D3\mathrm{D}3D) dielectric medium. Here we show how this photon-scattering relation can be used to analyze the scattering of single photons and weak coherent states from any generic multilevel quantum emitter coupled to a one-dimensional (1D1\mathrm{D}1D) waveguide. The reduction of the photon-scattering relation to 1D1\mathrm{D}1D waveguides provides a direct solution of the scattering problem involving low-intensity fields in the waveguide QED regime. To show how our formalism works, we consider examples of multilevel emitters and evaluate the transmitted and reflected field amplitude. Furthermore, we extend our study to include the dynamical response of the emitters for scattering of a weak coherent photon pulse. As our photon-scattering relation is based on the Heisenberg picture, it is quite useful for problems involving photodetection in the waveguide architecture. We show this by considering a specific problem of state generation by photodetection in a multilevel emitter, where our formalism exhibits its full potential. Since the considered emitters are generic, the 1D1\mathrm{D}1D results apply to a plethora of physical systems such as atoms, ions, quantum dots, superconducting qubits, and nitrogen-vacancy centers coupled to a 1D1\mathrm{D}1D waveguide or transmission line.
This thesis is concerned with the theory of spontaneous emission in the context of cavity QED and the guiding of atoms by laser light in confined geometries. We focus on three different geometrical shapes of waveguide, namely the parallel plate guide and two kinds of cylindrical waveguide: one with a rectangular cross section and another with a circular cross section. These waveguides are assumed to be characterised by two distinct properties. Firstly, all three types of guide have perfect conductor boundary conditions, which means that the guide walls are infinitely conducting and, consequently, lossless. Secondly, the guides are assumed to have subwavelength dimensions (less than the atom electric dipole transition wavelength #lambda#). The first consequence of this is that the spontaneous emission process is possible only via a few cavity modes. For each type of structure, we examine the confinement of electromagnetic fields within it and proceed to quantise these fields by following the standard procedure, incorporating the boundary conditions at the guide walls. This allows the position-dependent spontaneous emission rate to be evaluated for an electric dipole located at an arbitrary point within the guide. Asymptotic limits of the spontaneous emission rate are then derived which serve as useful checks of the calculations. For the rectangular guide, we are able to recover the results appropriate for the parallel-plate case when side a of the rectangular cross section becomes large, while side b is kept fixed. For the circular guide, we are able to recover the results appropriate for the free space case when the radius of the guide becomes large. The second part of the thesis deals with the theory of the motion of atoms in the spatially varying light fields inside the three different shapes of waveguide. In each structure we examine the forces that act on the atom and solve the equation of motion leading to the atom dynamics when an electric dipole within the guide is subject to an excited p-polarised cavity mode. The characteristics of the atomic motion in the guide in the presence of a cavity mode are then explored. We show that under these conditions the atom becomes subject to a transverse dipole potential and a dissipative force, both of which vary across the guide and are also functions of the atom velocity along the mode propagation direction. The dipole potential is responsible for the transverse trapping (and hence the channelling) of atoms at specific regions of the cross section, while the dissipative force controls the longitudinal motion of the channelled atoms. The conditions facilitating atom guiding are explored using typical parameters for sodium atoms in guides of subwavelength dimensions. The roles of the van der Waals and Casimir-Polder potentials on the atomic motion in waveguides is clarified theoretically in the context of the parallel-plate guide and we show that such potentials are effective only at relatively short distances from the guide walls. Finally, we show that atomic motion in a hollow circular guide is subject to a quantised torque arising from the orbital angular momentum effects associated with any excited waveguide mode of order l > 0. We find that an appropriately detuned atom immersed in such a mode may be trapped radially in a vibrational state and be made to exhibit novel rotational effects associated with the light torque, including a rotational frequency shift. (author)