194 research outputs found
Trends in Nanophotonics-Enabled Optofluidic Biosensors
Optofluidic sensors integrate photonics with micro/nanofluidics to realize compact devices for the label-free detection of molecules and the real-time monitoring of dynamic surface binding events with high specificity, ultrahigh sensitivity, low detection limit, and multiplexing capability. Nanophotonic structures composed of metallic and/or dielectric building blocks excel at focusing light into ultrasmall volumes, creating enhanced electromagnetic near-fields ideal for amplifying the molecular signal readout. Furthermore, fluidic control on small length scales enables precise tailoring of the spatial overlap between the electromagnetic hotspots and the analytes, boosting light-matter interaction, and can be utilized to integrate advanced functionalities for the pre-treatment of samples in real-world-use cases, such as purification, separation, or dilution. In this review, the authors highlight current trends in nanophotonics-enabled optofluidic biosensors for applications in the life sciences while providing a detailed perspective on how these approaches can synergistically amplify the optical signal readout and achieve real-time dynamic monitoring, which is crucial in biomedical assays and clinical diagnostics
Optical Nanofibers: a new platform for quantum optics
The development of optical nanofibers (ONF) and the study and control of
their optical properties when coupling atoms to their electromagnetic modes has
opened new possibilities for their use in quantum optics and quantum
information science. These ONFs offer tight optical mode confinement (less than
the wavelength of light) and diffraction-free propagation. The small cross
section of the transverse field allows probing of linear and non-linear
spectroscopic features of atoms with exquisitely low power. The cooperativity
-- the figure of merit in many quantum optics and quantum information systems
-- tends to be large even for a single atom in the mode of an ONF, as it is
proportional to the ratio of the atomic cross section to the electromagnetic
mode cross section. ONFs offer a natural bus for information and for
inter-atomic coupling through the tightly-confined modes, which opens the
possibility of one-dimensional many-body physics and interesting quantum
interconnection applications. The presence of the ONF modifies the vacuum
field, affecting the spontaneous emission rates of atoms in its vicinity. The
high gradients in the radial intensity naturally provide the potential for
trapping atoms around the ONF, allowing the creation of one-dimensional arrays
of atoms. The same radial gradient in the transverse direction of the field is
responsible for the existence of a large longitudinal component that introduces
the possibility of spin-orbit coupling of the light and the atom, enabling the
exploration of chiral quantum optics.Comment: 65 pages, to appear in Advances in Atomic, Molecular and Optical
Physic
Diamond Integrated Quantum Photonics: A Review
Integrated quantum photonics devices in diamond have tremendous potential for
many quantum applications, including long-distance quantum communication,
quantum information processing, and quantum sensing. These devices benefit from
diamond's combination of exceptional thermal, optical, and mechanical
properties. Its wide electronic bandgap makes diamond an ideal host for a
variety of optical active spin qubits that are key building blocks for quantum
technologies. In landmark experiments, diamond spin qubits have enabled
demonstrations of remote entanglement, memory-enhanced quantum communication,
and multi-qubit spin registers with fault-tolerant quantum error correction,
leading to the realization of multinode quantum networks. These advancements
put diamond at the forefront of solid-state material platforms for quantum
information processing. Recent developments in diamond nanofabrication
techniques provide a promising route to further scaling of these landmark
experiments towards real-life quantum technologies. In this paper, we focus on
the recent progress in creating integrated diamond quantum photonic devices,
with particular emphasis on spin-photon interfaces, cavity optomechanical
devices, and spin-phonon transduction. Finally, we discuss prospects and
remaining challenges for the use of diamond in scalable quantum technologies.Comment: 31 pages, 8 figure
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