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IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics

Vacuum Induced Transparency, Vacuum Rabi Splitting, and Exceptional Points in a Quantum Emitter Near a Graphene Nanodisk

George E. Paspalakis, Adamantios P. Synanidis, Vasilios D. Karanikolas, Andreas Terzis, Ioannis Thanopulos, Emmanuel Paspalakis

Published Apr 22, 2026• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

This work studies the absorption spectrum of a two-level quantum emitter coupled to a photonic environment modified by the plasmon modes of a graphene nanodisk. Using macroscopic quantum electrodynamics and a Lorentzian mapping, the system is described within an effective cavity quantum electrodynamics framework. Analytical expressions are derived for the linear susceptibility, and three distinct spectral regimes are identified. In vacuum induced transparency, destructive quantum interference opens a narrow transparency window in the absorption spectrum. In vacuum Rabi splitting, coherent energy exchange between the emitter and the plasmonically modified photonic mode produces a well-resolved doublet. When plasmon losses are large, the required interference is suppressed, leading to the absence of induced optical transparency. It is shown that the transitions between these regimes are strictly determined by the exceptional points of the system's effective non-Hermitian Hamiltonian, and a complete phase diagram is provided as a function of the emitter-nanodisk distance and the free-space decay rate. The results highlight graphene nanodisks as a highly tunable platform for the dynamic control of quantum interference, offering potential applications in reconfigurable nanophotonic spectral switching and transparency-window engineering.

DOI
10.1109/jstqe.2026.3686445

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Plasmonic nanocomposites demonstrate unique properties due to the plasmonic effects, especially those with graphene within their structures, thereby paving the way to various promising applications. In this paper, we investigate the linear properties of the graphene-nanodisks--quantum-dots hybrid plasmonic systems in the near-infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum by numerically solving the linear susceptibility of the weak probe field at a steady state. Utilising the density matrix method under the weak probe field approximation, we derive the equations of motion for the density matrix elements using the dipole--dipole-interaction Hamiltonian under the rotating wave approximation, where the quantum dot is modelled as a three-level atomic system of Λ configuration interacting with two externally applied fields, a probe field, and a robust control field. We find that the linear response of our hybrid plasmonic system exhibits an electromagnetically induced transparency window and switching between absorption and amplification without population inversion in the vicinity of the resonance, which can be controlled by adjusting the parameters of the external fields and the system's setup. The probe field and the distance-adjustable major axis of the system must be aligned with the direction of the resonance energy of the hybrid system. Moreover, our plasmonic hybrid system offers tunable switching between slow and fast light near the resonance. Therefore, the linear properties obtained by the hybrid plasmonic system can be employed in applications such as communication, biosensing, plasmonic sensors, signal processing, optoelectronics, and photonic devices.
We investigate the dynamical evolution of the spontaneous emission of a two-level quantum emitter near a graphene nanodisk. We employ the macroscopic quantum electrodynamics methodology to study the reversible population dynamics of the excited state of the quantum emitter in the non-Markovian limit. Our results indicate that the quantum-emitter--nanodisk interaction enters the strong light-matter coupling regime, as manifested in the excited-state probability where Rabi oscillations and population trapping effects are observed. The level of non-Markovianity is estimated by computing three different well-established measures and relate them to the quantum speedup due to the strong-coupling interaction of the emitter with the graphene nanodisk. Importantly, high values of the non-Markovianity and quantum speedup measures are achieved when the emitter-nanodisk interaction is strong, whereas decreasing coupling strength leads to smaller values.
We investigate the entanglement dynamics of two qubits interacting with a graphene nanodisk using the macroscopic quantum electrodynamics method. By modifying the free-space decay rate of each qubit, we study the coupling strength between the nanoparticle and the qubits. We find that as the free-space decay rate increases, the decaying Rabi oscillations featured in the qubit population dynamics change to complex non-Markovian dynamical population evolution. This is also reflected on the concurrence, which at weak or moderate light–matter coupling conditions, attains values up to 0.5, while as the coupling conditions become stronger, larger values are also transiently observed. Our findings indicate that graphene nanostructures can provide a platform for the realization of high degree of entanglement in the strong coupling regime at the nanoscale, essential for quantum technology applications.
Landau-quantized graphene (LQG) offers a magnetically controlled platform for manipulating coherent inter-Landau-level transitions of Dirac fermions. Such a platform provides compact control of terahertz and infrared photonic signals. Here, a closed-form susceptibility expression is derived using the density-matrix approach, where the real part of the susceptibility describes dispersion and the imaginary part describes absorption or gain. The numerical results show that tuning the control field modifies the probe response from a dispersive resonance regime to a transparency window and a gain-assisted response. The calculated group-index variation, approximately from 0.6 to 1.7, enables broad modulation of the probe group velocity, ranging from about 1.8 × 10 8 m/s to 5.2 × 10 8 m/s . The reduced-absorption region indicates an electromagnetically induced transparency response suitable for controlled probe-field transmission. Distinct spectral features are also observed in the absorption coefficient and electron energy-loss spectrum (ELS), indicating selective energy transfer near the LQG resonance and potential relevance for THz/IR modulation. In addition, the frequency-selective and sign-reversible photon-drag response suggests detuning-controlled optical momentum transfer. These tunable responses within the linear regime support LQG as a reconfigurable medium for quantum optical transport, synchronization, pulse routing, buffering, and chip-scale THz photonic interfaces.
Hybrid nanoplasmonic systems can provide a promising platform of potential nonlinear applications due to the enhancement of optical fields near their surfaces in addition to the control of strong light-matter interactions they can afford. We theoretically investigated the optical multistability of a probe field that circulated along a unidirectional ring cavity containing a metal nanoparticle-graphene nanodisk-quantum dot hybrid system; the quantum dot was modeled as a three-level atomic system of Lambda configuration interacting with probe and control fields in the optical region of the electromagnetic spectrum. We show that the threshold and degree of multistability can be controlled by the geometry of the setup, the size of metal nanoparticles, the carrier mobility in the graphene nanodisk and the detunings of probe and control fields. We found that under electromagnetically-induced transparency conditions the system exhibits enhanced optical multistability with an ultralow threshold in the case of two-photon resonance with high carrier mobility in the graphene nanodisk. Moreover, we calculated the limits of the controllable parameters within which the switching between optical multistability and bistability can occur. We show that our proposed hybrid plasmonic system can be useful for efficient all-optical switches and logic-gate elements for quantum computing and quantum information processing.