Deterministic coupling of a single nitrogen vacancy center to a photonic crystal cavity

We describe and experimentally demonstrate a technique for deterministic coupling between a photonic crystal (PC) nanocavity and single emitters. The technique is based on in-situ scanning of a PC cavity over a sample and allows the positioning of the cavity over a desired emitter with nanoscale resolution. The power of the technique, which we term a Scanning Cavity Microscope (SCM), is demonstrated by coupling the PC nanocavity to a single nitrogen vacancy (NV) center in diamond, an emitter system that provides optically accessible electron and nuclear spin qubits

Optics and Quantum Electronics

Contains table of contents for Section 3 and reports on twenty-three research projects.Joint Services Electronics Program Contract DAAL03-92-C-0001U.S. Air Force - Office of Scientific Research Contract F49620-91-C-0091Charles S. Draper Laboratories Contract DL-H-441629MIT Lincoln LaboratoryNational Science Foundation Grant ECS 90-12787Fujitsu LaboratoriesU.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-92-J-1302National Center for Integrated PhotonicsNational Center for Integrated Photonics TechnologyNational Science Foundation Grant EET 88-15834Joint Services Electronics Program Contract DAAL03-91-C-0001National Science Foundation Fellowship ECS-85-52701U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research (MGH) Contract N00014-91-C-0084U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-91-J-1956National Institutes of Health Grant NIH-5-RO1-GM35459-08Bose CorporationLawrence Livermore National Laboratories Subcontract B160530U.S. Department of Energy Grant DE-FG02-89-ER14012Rockwell International CorporationSpace Exploration AssociatesFuture Energy Applied Technology, Inc

Optics and Quantum Electronics

Contains table of contents for Section 3 and reports on twenty research projects.Charles S. Draper Laboratories Contract DL-H-467138Joint Services Electronics Program Contract DAAL03-92-C-0001Joint Services Electronics Program Grant DAAH04-95-1-0038U.S. Air Force - Office of Scientific Research Contract F49620-91-C-0091MIT Lincoln LaboratoryNational Science Foundation Grant ECS 90-12787Fujitsu LaboratoriesNational Center for Integrated PhotonicsHoneywell Technology CenterU.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research (MFEL) Contract N00014-94-1-0717U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research (MFEL) Grant N00014-91-J-1956National Institutes of Health Grant NIH-5-R01-GM35459-09U.S. Air Force - Office of Scientific Research Grant F49620-93-1-0301MIT Lincoln Laboratory Contract BX-5098Electric Power Research Institute Contract RP3170-25ENEC

Optics and Quantum Electronics

Contains table of contents on Section 3 and reports on nineteen research projects.Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Grant F49620-96-0126Joint Services Electronics Program Grant DAAH04-95-1-0038National Science Foundation Grant ECS 94-23737U.S. Air Force - Office of Scientific Research Contract F49620-95-1-0221U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-95-1-0715Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency/National Center for Integrated Photonics TechnologyMultidisciplinary Research InitiativeU.S. Air Force - Office of Scientific ResearchNational Science Foundation/MRSECU.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research (MFEL) Contract N00014-91-J-1956National Institutes of Health Grant R01-EY11289U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research (MFEL) Contract N00014-94-0717Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Contract N66001-96-C-863

Mean path length invariance in multiple light scattering

Our everyday experience teaches us that the structure of a medium strongly influences how light propagates through it. A disordered medium, e.g., appears transparent or opaque, depending on whether its structure features a mean free path that is larger or smaller than the medium thickness. While the microstructure of the medium uniquely determines the shape of all penetrating light paths, recent theoretical insights indicate that the mean length of these paths is entirely independent of any structural medium property and thus also invariant with respect to a change in the mean free path. Here, we report an experiment that demonstrates this surprising property explicitly. Using colloidal solutions with varying concentration and particle size, we establish an invariance of the mean path length spanning nearly two orders of magnitude in scattering strength, from almost transparent to very opaque media. This very general, fundamental and counterintuitive result can be extended to a wide range of systems, however ordered, correlated or disordered, and has important consequences for many fields, including light trapping and harvesting for solar cells and more generally in photonic structure design.Comment: Main: 5 pages, 3 figures. Supplementaries: 16 pages, 9 figure

Optics and Quantum Electronics

Contains table of contents for Section 3 and reports on eighteen research projects.Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency/MIT Lincoln Laboratory Contract MDA972-92-J-1038Joint Services Electronics Program Grant DAAH04-95-1-0038National Science Foundation Grant ECS 94-23737U.S. Air Force - Office of Scientific Research Contract F49620-95-1-0221U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-95-1-0715MIT Center for Material Science and EngineeringNational Center for Integrated Photonics Technology Contract DMR 94-00334National Center for Integrated Photonics TechnologyU.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research (MFEL) Contract N00014-94-1-0717National Institutes of Health Grant 9-R01-EY11289MIT Lincoln Laboratory Contract BX-5098Electric Power Research Institute Contract RP3170-25ENEC

Zinc oxide nanophotonics : toward quantum photonic technologies

University of Technology Sydney. Faculty of Science.Zinc oxide (ZnO) is a large bandgap (3.37 eV at room temperature) semiconductor and is a good candidate for short wavelength photonic devices such as laser diodes. A large exciton binding energy (60 meV) at room temperature in addition to the advantages of being able to grow various nanostructure forms have made ZnO suitable for a wide range of applications in optoelectronic devices. Driven by the rapid advance of nanophotonics, it is necessary to develop single photon sources (SPSs) and optical resonators in new class of materials. In particular, SPSs are required for a wide range of applications in quantum information science, quantum cryptography, and quantum communications. ZnO has been investigated for classical light emitting applications such as energy efficient light emitting diodes (LEDs) and ultraviolet (UV) lasers. Significantly ZnO has recently been identified as a promising candidate for quantum photonic technologies. Thus in this thesis the optical properties of ZnO micro- and nano-structures were investigated for ZnO nanophotonic technologies, specifically their applications in single photon emission and optical resonators. Firstly, the formation of radiative point defects in ZnO nanoparticles and their photophysical properties were investigated. In particular, using correlative photoluminescence (PL), cathodoluminescence (CL), electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR), and x-ray absorption near edge spectroscopy (XANES) it is shown that green luminescence (GL) at 2.48 eV and an EPR line at g = 2.00 belong to a surface oxygen vacancy (V⁺o,s) center, while a second green emission at 2.28 eV is associated with zinc vacancy (VZn) centers. It is established that these point defects exhibit nanosecond lifetimes when excited by above bandgap or sub-bandgap (405 nm and 532 nm excitation wavelength) excitation. These results demonstrate that point defects in ZnO nanostructures can be engineered for nanophotonic technologies. ZnO nanoparticles were consequently studied for the investigation of room temperature single photon emission from defect centers in ZnO nanoparticles. Under the optical excitation with 532 nm green laser, the emitters exhibit bright broadband fluorescence in the red spectral range centered at 640 nm. The red fluorescence from SPSs in ZnO defect center is almost fully linearly polarized with high signal-to-noise ratio. The studied emitters showed continuous blinking; however, it was confirmed that bleaching can be suppressed using a polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) coating. Furthermore, passivation by hydrogen treatment increase the density of single photon emitters by a factor of three. ZnO/Si heterojunctions were fabricated and used to investigate electrically driven light emission from localized defects in ZnO nanostructures at room temperature. It is shown that excellent rectifying behaviors were observed with the threshold voltages at ~ 18 V and ~ 7 V for ZnO nanoparticles and thin film-based devices, respectively. Both devices exhibit electroluminescence (EL) in the red spectral region ranging from ~ 500 nm to 800 nm when 40 V and 15 V were applied to ZnO nanoparticles/Si and ZnO thin film/Si, respectively. The emission is bright and stable for more than 30 minutes, providing an important prerequisite for practical devices. Finally, ZnO optical resonators were fabricated and investigated to enhance the visible light emission. Hexagonal ZnO microdisks with diameter ranging from 3 μm to 15 μm were grown by a carbothermal reduction method. Optical characterization of ZnO microdisks was performed using low temperature (80 K) CL imaging and spectroscopy. The green emission is found to be locally distributed near the hexagonal boundary of the ZnO microdisks. High resolution CL spectra of the ZnO microdisks reveal whispering gallery modes (WGMs) emission. Two different sizes (5 μm and 9 μm) of the ZnO microdisks were simulated to analyze the nature of light confinement in terms of geometrical optics. Respective analysis of the mode spacing and the mode resonances are used to show that the ZnO microdisks support the propagation of WGMs. The results show that the experimentally observed WGMs are in excellent agreement with the predicted theoretical positions calculated using a plane wave model. This work could provide the means for ZnO microdisk devices operating in the green spectral range