We experimentally and theoretically investigate collective radiative effects in an ensemble of cold atoms coupled to a single-mode optical nanofiber. Our analysis unveils the microscopic dynamics of the system, showing that collective interactions between the atoms and a single guided photon gradually build-up along the atomic array in the direction of propagation of light. These results are supported by time-resolved measurements of the light transmitted and reflected by the ensemble after excitation via nanofiber-guided laser pulses, whose rise and fall times are shorter than the atomic lifetime. Superradiant decays more than one order of magnitude faster than the single-atom free-space decay rate are observed for emission in the forward-propagating guided mode, while at the same time no speed-up of the decay rate are measured in the backward direction. In addition, position-resolved measurements of the light that is transmitted past the atoms are performed by inserting the nanofiber-coupled atomic array in a 45-m long fiber ring-resonator, which allow us to experimentally reveal the progressive growth of the collective response of the atomic ensemble. Our results highlight the unique opportunities offered by nanophotonic cold atom systems for the experimental investigation of collective light-matter interaction.
Collective coherent scattering of laser light induces strong light forces between polarizable point particles. These dipole forces are strongly enhanced in magnitude and distance within the field of an optical waveguide so that at low temperature the particles self-order in strongly bound regular patterns. The stationary configurations typically exhibit super-radiant scattering with strong particle and light confinement. Here we study collective excitations of such self-consistent crystalline particle-light structures as function of particle number and pump strength. Multiple scattering and ab…
This review describes the emerging field of waveguide quantum electrodynamics (WQED) concerned with the interaction of photons propagating in a waveguide with localized quantum emitters. The collective emitter-photon interactions can lead to both enhanced and suppressed coupling compared to the case of independent emitters. Here, we focus on guided photons and ordered arrays, leading to super- and sub-radiant states, bound photon states and quantum correlations with promising quantum information applications. We highlight recent groundbreaking experiments performed with different quantum platf…
We demonstrate scattering of laser light from two InAs quantum dots coupled to a photonic crystal waveguide, which is achieved by strain-tuning the optical transitions of the dots into mutual resonance. By performing measurements of the intensity and photon statistics of transmitted laser light before and after tuning the dots into resonance, we show that the nonlinearity is enhanced by collective scattering. In addition to providing a means of manipulating few-photon optical nonlinearities, our approach establishes new opportunities for multi-emitter quantum optics in a solid-state platform.
Considerable efforts have been recently devoted to combining ultracold atoms and nanophotonic devices to obtain not only better scalability and figures of merit than in free-space implementations, but also new paradigms for atom-photon interactions. Dielectric waveguides offer a promising platform for such integration because they enable tight transverse confinement of the propagating light, strong photon-atom coupling in single-pass configurations and potentially long-range atom-atom interactions mediated by the guided photons. However, the preparation of non-classical quantum states in such …
An integrated optical dipole trap uses two-color (red and blue-detuned) traveling evanescent wave fields for trapping cold neutral atoms. To achieve longitudinal confinement, we propose using an integrated optical waveguide coupler, which provides a potential gradient along the beam propagation direction sufficient to confine atoms. This integrated optical dipole trap can support an atomic ensemble with a large optical depth due to its small mode area. Its quasi-TE0 waveguide mode has an advantage over the HE11 mode of a nanofiber, with little inhomogeneous Zeeman broadening at the trapping re…
We study the dynamics of neutral cold atoms in an $L$-shaped crossed-beam optical waveguide formed by two perpendicular red-detuned lasers of different intensities and a blue-detuned laser at the corner. Complemented with a vibrational cooling process this setting works as a one-way device or "atom diode".
Recently, it has been suggested that the collective radiative decay of two point-like quantum emitters coupled to a waveguide, separated by a distance comparable to the coherence length of a spontaneously emitted photon, leads to an apparent $^{\prime}$superradiance paradox$^{\prime}$ by which one cannot decide whether independent or collective emission occurs. The resolution of the paradox stems from the strong non-Markovian dynamics arising from the delayed field-mediated atom interaction. Here we suggest an integrated optics platform to emulate the superradiance paradox, based on photon esc…
We study the dynamics of a single excitation coherently shared amongst an ensemble of atoms and coupled to a one-dimensional wave guide. The coupling between the matter and the light field gives rise to collective phenomena such as superradiant states with an enhanced initial decay rate, but also to the coherent exchange of the excitation between the atoms. We find that the competition between the two phenomena provides a characteristic dynamics for the decay of the excitations, and remarkably exhibits an algebraic behavior, instead of the expected standard exponential one, for a large number …
Collective radiance is a fundamental phenomenon in quantum optics. However, these radiation effects remain largely unexplored in the field of quantum acoustics. In this work, we investigate the supercorrelated radiation effects in a nonlinear phononic waveguide that is coupled with NV centers. When the spin's frequency is below the scattering continuum but within the bound-state band of the phonon waveguide, a single NV center dissipates slowly, but two NV centers can exhibit a rapid exponential decay. When multiple NV spins are considered, supercorrelated radiance occurs at a rate N times fas…
We develop a formalism for modelling exact time dynamics in waveguide quantum electrodynamics (QED) using the real-space approach. The formalism does not assume any specific configuration of emitters and allows the study of Markovian dynamics fully analytically and non-Markovian dynamics semi-analytically with a simple numerical integration step. We use the formalism to study subradiance, superradiance and bound states in continuum. We discuss new phenomena such as subdivision of collective decay rates into symmetric and anti-symmetric subsets and non-Markovian superradiance effects that can l…
We examine the routing scheme of single photons in a one-dimensional periodic chain of two-level quantum emitters (QEs) strongly coupled to two waveguides in a ladder configuration. It is known that for a single-emitter chiral waveguide ladder setting, photons can be redirected from one waveguide to another with a $100\%$ probability (deterministically) provided the resonance condition is met and spontaneous emission is completely ignored. However, when the spontaneous emission is included the routing scheme becomes considerably imperfect. In this paper, we present a solution to this issue by …
Ordered atomic arrays trapped in the vicinity of nanoscale waveguides offer original light-matter interfaces, with applications to quantum information and quantum non-linear optics. Here, we study the decay dynamics of a single collective atomic excitation coupled to a waveguide in different configurations. The atoms are arranged as a linear array and only a segment of them is excited to a superradiant mode and emits light into the waveguide. Additional atomic chains placed on one or both sides play a passive role, either reflecting or absorbing this emission. We show that when varying the geo…
A lattice of trapped atoms strongly coupled to a one-dimensional nanophotonic waveguide is investigated in exploiting the concept of polariton as the system natural eigenstate. We apply a bosonization procedure, which was presented separately by P. W. Anderson and V. M. Agranovich, to transform excitation spin-half operators into interacting bosons, and which shown here to confirm the hard-core boson model. We derive polariton-polariton kinematic interactions and study them by solving the scattering problem. In using the excitation-photon detuning as a control parameter, we examine the regime …
Motion-induced directionality of collective emission in a non-chiral waveguide
Institute of Applied Physics, Technical University of Darmstadt（达姆施塔特工业大学应用物理研究所）；Dept. of Physics and research center OPTIMAS, RPTU University Kaiserslautern-Landau（凯泽斯劳滕-兰道理工大学物理系及OPTIMAS研究中心）
We demonstrate the generation of quantum-correlated photon pairs from a Si photonic-crystal coupled-resonator optical waveguide. A slow-light supermode realized by the collective resonance of high-Q and small-mode-volume photonic-crystal cavities successfully enhanced the efficiency of the spontaneous four-wave mixing process. The generation rate of photon pairs was improved by two orders of magnitude compared with that of a photonic-crystal line defect waveguide without a slow-light effect.
Coupling quantum emitters and nanostructures, in particular cold atoms and waveguides, has recently raised a large interest due to unprecedented possibilities of engineering light-matter interactions. However, the implementation of these promising concepts has been hampered by various theoretical and experimental issues. In this work, we propose a new type of periodic dielectric waveguide that provides strong interactions between atoms and guided photons with an unusual dispersion. We design an asymmetric comb waveguide that supports a slow mode with a quartic (instead of quadratic) dispersion…
We propose a nanowaveguide platform for collective atom-light interaction through evanescent field coupling. We have developed a 1cm-long silicon nitride nanowaveguide can use evanescent fields to trap and probe an ensemble of 87Rb atoms. The waveguide has a sub-micrometer square mode area and was designed with tapers for high fiber-to-waveguide coupling efficiencies at near-infrared wavelengths (750nm to 1100nm). Inverse tapers in the platform adiabatically transfer a weakly guided mode of fiber-coupled light into a strongly guided mode with an evanescent field to trap atoms and then back to …
We discuss the evolution of the quantum state of an ensemble of atoms that are coupled via a single propagating optical mode. We theoretically show that the quantum state of N atoms, which are initially prepared in the timed Dicke state, evolves through all the N - 1 states that are subradiant with respect to the propagating mode. We predict this process to occur for any atom number and any atom-light coupling strength. These findings are supported by measurements performed with cold cesium atoms coupled to the evanescent field of an optical nanofiber. We experimentally observe the evolution o…
We observe the continuous emission of photons into a waveguide from a superconducting qubit without the application of an external drive. To explain this observation, we build a two-bath model where the qubit couples simultaneously to a cold bath (the waveguide) and a hot bath (a secondary environment). Our results show that the thermal-photon occupation of the hot bath is up to 0.14 photons, 35 times larger than the cold waveguide, leading to nonequilibrium heat transport with a power of up to 132 zW, as estimated from the qubit emission spectrum. By adding more isolation between the sample o…
We present experiments on ensemble cavity quantum electrodynamics with cold potassium atoms in a high-finesse ring cavity. Potassium-39 atoms are cooled in a two-dimensional magneto-optical trap and transferred to a three-dimensional trap which intersects the cavity mode. The apparatus is described in detail and the first observations of strong coupling with potassium atoms are presented. Collective strong coupling of atoms and light is demonstrated via the splitting of the cavity transmission spectrum and the avoided crossing of the normal modes.
We study the collective effects that emerge in waveguide quantum electrodynamics where several (artificial) atoms are coupled to a one-dimensional superconducting transmission line. Since single microwave photons can travel without loss for a long distance along the line, real and virtual photons emitted by one atom can be reabsorbed or scattered by a second atom. Depending on the distance between the atoms, this collective effect can lead to super- and subradiance or to a coherent exchange-type interaction between the atoms. Changing the artificial atoms transition frequencies, something whic…
Light transport in periodic waveguides coupled to a two-level atom is investigated. By using optical Bloch equations and a photonic modal formalism, we derive semi-analytical expressions for the scattering matrix of one atom trapped in a periodic waveguide. The derivation is general, as the expressions hold for any periodic photonic or plasmonic waveguides. It provides a basic building block to study collective effects arising from photon-mediated multi-atom interactions in periodic waveguides.
We show that massive low energy particles traversing a branching zone or a crossing of quantum waveguides may experience a non standard trapping force that cannot be derived from a potential. For interacting cold Bose atoms we report on the formation of a localised Hartree ground state for three prototype waveguide geometries with broken translational symmetry: a cranked L-shaped waveguide L, a T-shaped waveguide T, and the crossing C of two quantum waveguides. The phenomenon is kinetic energy driven and cannot be described within the Thomas-Fermi approximation. Depending on the ratio of joini…
Systems consisting of cold atoms trapped near photonic crystal waveguides have recently emerged as an exciting platform for quantum atom-light interfaces. Such a system enables realization of tunable long-range interactions between internal states of atoms (spins), mediated by guided photons. Currently, experimental platforms are still limited by low filling fractions, where the atom number is much smaller than the number of sites at which atoms can potentially be trapped. Here, we show that this regime in fact enables interesting many-body quantum phenomena, which are typically associated wit…
We study light scattering off a two-dimensional (2D) array of atoms driven to Rydberg levels. We show that the problem can be mapped to a generalized model of waveguide QED, consisting of multiple 1D photonic channels (transverse modes), each of which directionally coupled to a corresponding Rydberg surface mode of the array. In the Rydberg blockade regime, collective excitations of different surface modes block each other, leading to multi-channel correlated photonic states. Using an analytical approach, we characterize inter-channel quantum correlations, and elucidate the role of collective …
The emerging field of on-chip integration of nanophotonic devices and cold atoms offers extremely-strong and pure light-matter interaction schemes, which may have profound impact on quantum information science. In this context, a long-standing obstacle is to achieve strong interaction between single atoms and single photons, while at the same time trap atoms in vacuum at large separation distances from dielectric surfaces. In this work, we study new waveguide geometries that challenge these conflicting objectives. The designed photonic crystal waveguide is expected to offer a good compromise, …
We show that atomic motion leads not only to noticeable quantitative, but in some cases also to qualitative modification of collective effects in dense and cold atomic ensembles even in the case when the characteristic Doppler shifts are tens of times smaller than the natural linewidth. The observed influence is explained as a result of the suppression of the impact of sub-radiant collective states caused by the displacement of the atoms.
A Platform for Evanescently Trapping Rb-87 Using Silicon Nitride Strip Waveguides Buried in Silica
University of Bristol（布里斯托大学）；Quantum Engineering Technology Labs, H.H. Wills Physics Laboratory and School of Electrical, Electronic, & Mechanical Engineering, University of Bristol（布里斯托大学量子工程技术实验室、H.H. 威尔斯物理实验室和电气、电子与机械工程学院）；Quantum Engineering Centre for Doctoral Training, University of Bristol（布里斯托大学量子工程博士培训中心）
We examine cold atomic collisions within a resonant optical cavity. The quantized cavity mode can be used to manipulate the collisions between the cold atoms, such that periodic exchange of excitations between the atoms and the electromagnetic field strongly alters the collision dynamics. A colliding pair of atoms can thereby oscillate between its ground and excited states during the collision time. Using a semiclassical model, it can be predicted that such Rabi-like oscillations are revealed in the atomic trap-loss probabilities, which show maxima and minima as a function of the detuning betw…
We demonstrate clear collective atomic recoil motion in a dilute, momentum-squeezed, ultra-cold degenerate fermion gas by circumventing the effects of Pauli blocking. Although gain from bosonic stimulation is necessarily absent because the quantum gas obeys Fermi-Dirac statistics, collective atomic recoil motion from the underlying wave-mixing process is clearly visible. With a single pump pulse of the proper polarization, we observe two mutually-perpendicular wave-mixing processes occurring simultaneously. Our experiments also indicate that the red-blue pump detuning asymmetry observed with B…
We study the cooperative optical coupling between regularly spaced atoms in a one-dimensional waveguide using decompositions to subradiant and superradiant collective excitation eigenmodes, direct numerical solutions, and analytical transfer-matrix methods. We illustrate how the spectrum of transmitted light through the waveguide including the emergence of narrow Fano resonances can be understood by the resonance features of the eigenmodes. We describe a method based on superradiant and subradiant modes to engineer the optical response of the waveguide and to store light. The stopping of light…
We demonstrate active control of inhomogeneous dephasing and rephasing for single collective atomic spin excitations (spin-waves) created by spontaneous Raman scattering in a quantum memory based on cold $^{87}$Rb atoms. The control is provided by a reversible external magnetic field gradient inducing an inhomogeneous broadening of the atomic hyperfine levels. We demonstrate experimentally that active rephasing preserves the single photon nature of the retrieved photons. Finally, we show that the control of the inhomogeneous dephasing enables the creation of time-separated spin-waves in a sing…
We analyze the emergence of correlated optical phenomena in the transmission of light through a waveguide that confines classical or ultracold quantum degenerate atomic ensembles. The conditions of the correlated collective response are identified in terms of atom density, thermal broadening, and photon losses by using stochastic Monte-Carlo simulations and transfer matrix methods of transport theory. We also calculate the "cooperative Lamb shift" for the waveguide transmission resonance, and discuss line shifts that are specific to effectively one-dimensional waveguide systems.
We study single photon transport in a one-dimensional disordered lattice of three-level atoms coupled to an optical waveguide. In particular, we study atoms of Λ-type that are capable of exhibiting electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) and separately consider disorder in the atomic positions and transition frequencies. We mainly address the question of how preferential emission into waveguide modes (chirality) can influence the formation of spatially localized states. Our work has relevance to experimental studies of cold atoms coupled to nanoscale waveguides and has possible applicat…
It is known that under resonance conditions, a group of strongly interacting bosonic atoms, trapped in a double-well potential, mimics a single particle, performing Rabi oscillations between the wells. By implication, all atoms need to tunnel at roughly the same time, even though the Bose-Hubbard Hamiltonian accounts only for one-atom-at-a-time transfers. We analyse the mechanism of this collective behaviour, evaluate the Rabi frequencies in the process, and discuss the limitation of this simple picture. In particular, is is shown that the small rapid oscillations superimposed on the slow Rabi…
Robust Superradiance and Spontaneous Spin Ordering in Disordered Waveguide Quantum Electrodynamics
Technical University of Munich（慕尼黑工业大学）；TUM School of Natural Sciences, Physics Department（慕尼黑工业大学自然科学学院物理系）；Walther-Meißner-Institut, Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften（瓦尔特·迈斯纳研究所，巴伐利亚科学院）；Munich Center for Quantum Science and Technology (MCQST)（慕尼黑量子科学与技术中心）；Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Copenhagen（哥本哈根大学数学科学系）
