CaltechAUTHORS
Published May 2014 | Version Supplemental Material + Submitted
Journal Article Open

Atom-Light Interactions in Photonic Crystals

Creators

  • 1. ROR icon California Institute of Technology
  • 2. ROR icon Korea Institute of Science and Technology
  • 3. ROR icon Institute of Photonic Sciences

Abstract

The integration of nanophotonics and atomic physics has been a long-sought goal that would open new frontiers for optical physics, including novel quantum transport and many-body phenomena with photon-mediated atomic interactions. Reaching this goal requires surmounting diverse challenges in nanofabrication and atomic manipulation. Here we report the development of a novel integrated optical circuit with a photonic crystal capable of both localizing and interfacing atoms with guided photons. Optical bands of a photonic crystal waveguide are aligned with selected atomic transitions. From reflection spectra measured with average atom number N = 1.1 ± 0.4, we infer that atoms are localized within the waveguide by optical dipole forces. The fraction of single-atom radiative decay into the waveguide is Γ_(1D)/Γ'≃(0.32±0.08), where Γ_(1D) is the rate of emission into the guided mode and Γ' is the decay rate into all other channels. Γ_(1D)/Γ′ is unprecedented in all current atom–photon interfaces.

Additional Information

© 2014 Macmillan Publishers Limited. Received 19 Dec 2013; Accepted 2 Apr 2014; Published 8 May 2014. We gratefully acknowledge the contributions of D. Alton, J. Cohen, D. Ding, P. Forn-Diaz, S. Meenehan, R. Norte, and M. Pototschnig. Funding is provided by the IQIM, an NSF Physics Frontiers Center with support of the Moore Foundation, the DARPA ORCHID program, the AFOSR QuMPASS MURI, the DoD NSSEFF program (H.J.K.), and NSF PHY-1205729 (H.J.K.). A.G. is supported by the Nakajima Foundation. S.P.Y. and J.A.M. acknowledge support from the International Fulbright Science and Technology Award. The research of K.S.C. is supported by the KIST institutional program. D.E.C. acknowledges funding from Fundació Privada Cellex Barcelona. Author contributions: All authors contributed extensively to the research presented in this paper. Additional information: Supplementary Information accompanies this paper at http://www.nature.com/naturecommunications. Competing financial interests: The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Attached Files

Submitted - 1312.3446v1.pdf

Supplemental Material - ncomms4808-s1.pdf

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1312.3446v1.pdf

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Additional details

Identifiers

Eprint ID
43252
DOI
10.1038/ncomms4808
Resolver ID
CaltechAUTHORS:20140107-143746870

Related works

Describes
http://arxiv.org/abs/1312.3446 (URL)

Funding

Institute for Quantum Information and Matter (IQIM)
NSF Physics Frontiers Center
Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR)
National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellowship
NSF
PHY-1205729
Nakajima Foundation
International Fulbright Science and Technology Award
Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST)
Fundació Privada Cellex Barcelona

Dates

Created
2014-01-07
Created from EPrint's datestamp field
Updated
2021-11-10
Created from EPrint's last_modified field

Caltech Custom Metadata

Caltech groups
Institute for Quantum Information and Matter