Non-reciprocal phase shift induced by an effective magnetic flux for light

Photons are neutral particles that do not interact directly with a magnetic field. However, recent theoretical work has shown that an effective magnetic field for photons can exist if the phase of light changes with its direction of propagation. This direction-dependent phase indicates the presence of an effective magnetic field, as shown experimentally for electrons in the Aharonov–Bohm experiment. Here, we replicate this experiment using photons. To create this effective magnetic field we construct an on-chip silicon-based Ramsey-type interferometer. This interferometer has been traditionally used to probe the phase of atomic states and here we apply it to probe the phase of photonic states. We experimentally observe an effective magnetic flux between 0 and 2π corresponding to a non-reciprocal 2π phase shift with an interferometer length of 8.35 mm and an interference-fringe extinction ratio of 2.4 dB. This non-reciprocal phase is comparable to those of common monolithically integrated magneto-optical materials

Observation of an Effective Magnetic field for Light

Photons are neutral particles that do not interact directly with a magnetic field. However, recent theoretical work has shown that an effective magnetic field for photons can exist if the phase of light would change with its propagating direction. This direction-dependent phase indicates the presence of an effective magnetic field as shown for electrons experimentally in the Aharonov-Bohm experiment. Here we replicate this experiment using photons. In order to create this effective magnetic field, we construct an on-chip silicon-based Ramsey-type interferometer. This interferometer has been traditionally used to probe the phase of atomic states, and here we apply it to probe the phase of photonic states. We experimentally observe a phase change, i.e. an effective magnetic field flux from 0 to 2pi. In an Aharonov-Bohm configuration for electrons, considering the device geometry, this flux corresponds to an effective magnetic field of 0.2 Gauss.Comment: 15 pages and 4 figure

On-Chip Optical Squeezing

We present the first demonstration of all-optical squeezing in an on-chip monolithically integrated CMOS-compatible platform. Our device consists of a low loss silicon nitride microring optical parametric oscillator (OPO) with a gigahertz cavity linewidth. We measure 1.7 dB (5 dB corrected for losses) of sub-shot noise quantum correlations between bright twin beams generated in the microring four-wave-mixing OPO pumped above threshold. This experiment demonstrates a compact, robust, and scalable platform for quantum optics and quantum information experiments on-chip.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure

Experimental observation of three-color optical quantum correlations

Quantum correlations between bright pump, signal, and idler beams produced by an optical parametric oscillator, all with different frequencies, are experimentally demonstrated. We show that the degree of entanglement between signal and idler fields is improved by using information of pump fluctuations. This is the first observation of three-color optical quantum correlations.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figure

Casimir interaction between plane and spherical metallic surfaces

We give an exact series expansion of the Casimir force between plane and spherical metallic surfaces in the non trivial situation where the sphere radius $R$, the plane-sphere distance $L$ and the plasma wavelength $\lambda_\P$ have arbitrary relative values. We then present numerical evaluation of this expansion for not too small values of $L/R$. For metallic nanospheres where $R, L$ and $\lambda_\P$ have comparable values, we interpret our results in terms of a correlation between the effects of geometry beyond the proximity force approximation (PFA) and of finite reflectivity due to material properties. We also discuss the interest of our results for the current Casimir experiments performed with spheres of large radius $R\gg L$.Comment: 4 pages, new presentation (highlighting the novelty of the results) and added references. To appear in Physical Review Letter

Quantum interference between transverse spatial waveguide modes

Integrated quantum optics has the potential to markedly reduce the footprint and resource requirements of quantum information processing systems, but its practical implementation demands broader utilization of the available degrees of freedom within the optical field. To date, integrated photonic quantum systems have primarily relied on path encoding. However, in the classical regime, the transverse spatial modes of a multi-mode waveguide have been easily manipulated using the waveguide geometry to densely encode information. Here, we demonstrate quantum interference between the transverse spatial modes within a single multi-mode waveguide using quantum circuit-building blocks. This work shows that spatial modes can be controlled to an unprecedented level and have the potential to enable practical and robust quantum information processing