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All-photonic quantum simulators with spectrally disordered ensembles of emitters

Victoria A. Norman, Jesse Patton, Richard T. Scalettar, Marina Radulaski

Published Jan 1, 2022• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We model an all-photonic quantum simulator that consists of a solid-state coupled-cavity array with integrated ensembles of color centers. We quantify conditions for polariton creation that overcome the setbacks of moderate spectral dispersion.
DOI
10.1364/quantum.2022.qtu3a.6

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•Sep 4, 2019•0 citations
Abstract Integrated photonics has been a promising platform for analog quantum simulation of condensed matter phenomena in strongly correlated systems. To that end, we explore the implementation of all-photonic quantum simulators in coupled cavity arrays with integrated ensembles of spectrally disordered emitters. Our model is reflective of color center ensembles integrated into photonic crystal cavity arrays. Using the Quantum Master equation and the Effective Hamiltonian approaches, we study energy band formation and wavefunction properties in the open quantum Tavis–Cummings–Hubbard framework. We find conditions for polariton creation and (de)localization under experimentally relevant values of disorder in emitter frequencies, cavity resonance frequencies, and emitter-cavity coupling rates. To quantify these properties, we introduce two metrics, the polaritonic and nodal participation ratios, that characterize the light-matter hybridization and the node delocalization of the wavefunction, respectively. These new metrics combined with the Effective Hamiltonian approach prove to be a powerful toolbox for cavity quantum electrodynamical engineering of solid-state systems.
Color centers are optically active point defects in semiconductor materials, many of them carrying a spin degree of freedom that couples coherently to emitted photons. This makes them a leading candidate for building quantum computers, networks, and sensors, but realizing that promise depends on the interface between the emitter and light. Color centers must be integrated into nanophotonic structures, such as nanopillars that collect their emission efficiently and optical cavities that couple them to a single mode. This dissertation studies the physics of quantum emitters inside such structures along two complementary threads: the direct cryogenic spectroscopy of color centers integrated into silicon carbide nanostructures, and the study of the physics of many-body cavity quantum electrodynamics (CQED) through simulation on superconducting and trapped-ion quantum hardware. The first thread concerns the nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in 4H silicon carbide integrated into nanopillars. We show that the sub-wavelength geometry of a nanopillar reshapes the local electromagnetic environment, granting optical access to transitions that selection rules forbid in bulk material: emission from the PL3 divacancy, nearly absent in planar devices, becomes pronounced in nanopillars through a polarization transformation of the excitation field, and the orientation-dependent collection of the pillar resolves the previously ambiguous NV4′ line, establishing nanophotonic integration as a symmetry-sensitive probe of defect structure. We then take up the complementary problem of quantifying how many emitters a device contains, adapting the number-and-brightness technique from fluorescence microscopy to solid-state emitters. This calibration-free method counts dense NV ensembles in silicon carbide nanopillars, a regime beyond the reach of existing optical techniques, and extracts their areal density and formation yield. The second thread turns to many-body cavity QED, in which placing N emitters in a common cavity enhances the light-matter coupling by √N and gives rise to collective effects that are central to strong-coupling applications yet difficult to achieve in solid-state devices based on defects. We realize one such effect on a superconducting circuit, demonstrating photon blockade, the conversion of a coherent drive into a stream of single photons, in a Tavis–Cummings system of N = 1, 2, 3 transmon qubits coupled to a common resonator. To study the open-system dynamics that govern these systems, we digitally simulate the dissipative Tavis–Cummings model on both a superconducting and a trapped-ion processor. Platform-specific compilation and error mitigation yield population dynamics in close agreement with exact solutions, providing a recipe for simulating cavity-emitter systems on contemporary quantum computers. Together, the two threads connect the fabrication and characterization of color-center devices to the many-body cavity-QED physics that will ultimately govern their performance.
Hyperbolic phonon polaritons (HPPs) in hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) confine mid-infrared light to deep-subwavelength scales and may offer a powerful route to strong light-matter interactions. Generation and control of HPPs are typically accessed using classical near-field probes, which limits experiments at the quantum level.A complementary frontier in hBN research focuses on color centers: bright, stable, atomically localized emitters that have rapidly emerged as a promising platform for solid-state quantum optics. Here we establish a key connection between these two directions by developing a cavity-QED framework in which a single hBN color center serves as a quantum source of HPPs. We quantify the emitter-HPP interaction and analyze two generation schemes. The first is spontaneous emission into the phonon sideband, which can produce single-HPP events and, in ultrathin slabs, becomes single-mode with an enhanced decay rate. The second is a stimulated Raman process that provides frequency selectivity, tunable conversion rate, and narrowband excitation. This drive launches spatially confined, ray-like HPPs that propagate over micrometer distances. We also outline a two-emitter correlation measurement that can directly test the single-polariton character of these emissions. By connecting color-center quantum optics with hyperbolic polaritonics, our approach enables quantum emitters to act as on-chip quantum sources and controls for HPPs, while HPPs provide long-range channels that couple spatially separated emitters. Together, these capabilities point to a new direction for mid-infrared photonic experiments that unite strong coupling, spectral selectivity, and spatial reach within a single material system.