Electro-optically tunable microring resonators in lithium niobate

Optical microresonators have recently attracted a growing attention in the photonics community. Their applications range from quantum electro-dynamics to sensors and filtering devices for optical telecommunication systems, where they are likely to become an essential building block. The integration of nonlinear and electro-optical properties in the resonators represents a very stimulating challenge, as it would incorporate new and more advanced functionality. Lithium niobate is an excellent candidate material, being an established choice for electro-optic and nonlinear optical applications. Here we report on the first realization of optical microring resonators in submicrometric thin films of lithium niobate. The high index contrast films are produced by an improved crystal ion slicing and bonding technique using benzocyclobutene. The rings have radius R=100 um and their transmission spectrum has been tuned using the electro-optic effect. These results open new perspectives for the use of lithium niobate in chip-scale integrated optical devices and nonlinear optical microcavities.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figure

Strong Interactions of Single Atoms and Photons near a Dielectric Boundary

Modern research in optical physics has achieved quantum control of strong interactions between a single atom and one photon within the setting of cavity quantum electrodynamics (cQED). However, to move beyond current proof-of-principle experiments involving one or two conventional optical cavities to more complex scalable systems that employ N >> 1 microscopic resonators requires the localization of individual atoms on distance scales < 100 nm from a resonator's surface. In this regime an atom can be strongly coupled to a single intracavity photon while at the same time experiencing significant radiative interactions with the dielectric boundaries of the resonator. Here, we report an initial step into this new regime of cQED by way of real-time detection and high-bandwidth feedback to select and monitor single Cesium atoms localized ~100 nm from the surface of a micro-toroidal optical resonator. We employ strong radiative interactions of atom and cavity field to probe atomic motion through the evanescent field of the resonator. Direct temporal and spectral measurements reveal both the significant role of Casimir-Polder attraction and the manifestly quantum nature of the atom-cavity dynamics. Our work sets the stage for trapping atoms near micro- and nano-scopic optical resonators for applications in quantum information science, including the creation of scalable quantum networks composed of many atom-cavity systems that coherently interact via coherent exchanges of single photons.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, Supplemental Information included as ancillary fil

Fast Purcell-enhanced single photon source in 1,550-nm telecom band from a resonant quantum dot-cavity coupling

High-bit-rate nanocavity-based single photon sources in the 1,550-nm telecom band are challenges facing the development of fibre-based long-haul quantum communication networks. Here we report a very fast single photon source in the 1,550-nm telecom band, which is achieved by a large Purcell enhancement that results from the coupling of a single InAs quantum dot and an InP photonic crystal nanocavity. At a resonance, the spontaneous emission rate was enhanced by a factor of 5 resulting a record fast emission lifetime of 0.2 ns at 1,550 nm. We also demonstrate that this emission exhibits an enhanced anti-bunching dip. This is the first realization of nanocavity-enhanced single photon emitters in the 1,550-nm telecom band. This coupled quantum dot cavity system in the telecom band thus provides a bright high-bit-rate non-classical single photon source that offers appealing novel opportunities for the development of a long-haul quantum telecommunication system via optical fibres.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figure

Liquid-infiltrated photonic crystals - enhanced light-matter interactions for lab-on-a-chip applications

Optical techniques are finding widespread use in analytical chemistry for chemical and bio-chemical analysis. During the past decade, there has been an increasing emphasis on miniaturization of chemical analysis systems and naturally this has stimulated a large effort in integrating microfluidics and optics in lab-on-a-chip microsystems. This development is partly defining the emerging field of optofluidics. Scaling analysis and experiments have demonstrated the advantage of micro-scale devices over their macroscopic counterparts for a number of chemical applications. However, from an optical point of view, miniaturized devices suffer dramatically from the reduced optical path compared to macroscale experiments, e.g. in a cuvette. Obviously, the reduced optical path complicates the application of optical techniques in lab-on-a-chip systems. In this paper we theoretically discuss how a strongly dispersive photonic crystal environment may be used to enhance the light-matter interactions, thus potentially compensating for the reduced optical path in lab-on-a-chip systems. Combining electromagnetic perturbation theory with full-wave electromagnetic simulations we address the prospects for achieving slow-light enhancement of Beer-Lambert-Bouguer absorption, photonic band-gap based refractometry, and high-Q cavity sensing.Comment: Invited paper accepted for the "Optofluidics" special issue to appear in Microfluidics and Nanofluidics (ed. Prof. David Erickson). 11 pages including 8 figure

Towards quantum computing with single atoms and optical cavities on atom chips

We report on recent developments in the integration of optical microresonators into atom chips and describe some fabrication and implementation challenges. We also review theoretical proposals for quantum computing with single atoms based on the observation of photons leaking through the cavity mirrors. The use of measurements to generate entanglement can result in simpler, more robust and scalable quantum computing architectures. Indeed, we show that quantum computing with atom-cavity systems is feasible even in the presence of relatively large spontaneous decay rates and finite photon detector efficiencies.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figure

The Quantum Internet

Quantum networks offer a unifying set of opportunities and challenges across exciting intellectual and technical frontiers, including for quantum computation, communication, and metrology. The realization of quantum networks composed of many nodes and channels requires new scientific capabilities for the generation and characterization of quantum coherence and entanglement. Fundamental to this endeavor are quantum interconnects that convert quantum states from one physical system to those of another in a reversible fashion. Such quantum connectivity for networks can be achieved by optical interactions of single photons and atoms, thereby enabling entanglement distribution and quantum teleportation between nodes.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures Higher resolution versions of the figures can be downloaded from the following link: http://www.its.caltech.edu/~hjkimble/QNet-figures-high-resolutio

Plasmofluidic Disk Resonators

Waveguide-coupled silicon ring or disk resonators have been used for optical signal processing and sensing. Large-scale integration of optical devices demands continuous reduction in their footprints, and ultimately they need to be replaced by silicon-based plasmonic resonators. However, few waveguide-coupled silicon-based plasmonic resonators have been realized until now. Moreover, fluid cannot interact effectively with them since their resonance modes are strongly confined in solid regions. To solve this problem, this paper reports realized plasmofluidic disk resonators (PDRs). The PDR consists of a submicrometer radius silicon disk and metal laterally surrounding the disk with a 30-nm-wide channel in between. The channel is filled with fluid, and the resonance mode of the PDR is strongly confined in the fluid. The PDR coupled to a metal-insulator-silicon-insulator-metal waveguide is implemented by using standard complementary metal oxide semiconductor technology. If the refractive index of the fluid increases by 0.141, the transmission spectrum of the waveguide coupled to the PDR of radius 0.9 mu m red-shifts by 30 nm. The PDR can be used as a refractive index sensor requiring a very small amount of analyte. Plus, the PDR filled with liquid crystal may be an ultracompact intensity modulator which is effectively controlled by small driving voltageopen

Single Mode Lasing from Hybrid Hemispherical Microresonators

Enormous attention has been paid to optical microresonators which hold a great promise for microlasers as well as fundamental studies in cavity quantum electrodynamics. Here we demonstrate a three-dimensional (3D) hybrid microresonator combining self-assembled hemispherical structure with a planar reflector. By incorporating dye molecules into the hemisphere, optically pumped lasing phenomenon is observed at room temperature. We have studied the lasing behaviors with different cavity sizes, and particularly single longitudinal mode lasing from hemispheres with diameter ∼15 μm is achieved. Detailed characterizations indicate that the lasing modes shift under varying pump densities, which can be well-explained by frequency shift and mode hopping. This work provides a versatile approach for 3D confined microresonators and opens an opportunity to realize tunable single mode microlasers

Stimulated optomechanical excitation of surface acoustic waves in a microdevice

Stimulated Brillouin interaction between sound and light, known to be the strongest optical nonlinearity common to all amorphous and crystalline dielectrics, has been widely studied in fibers and bulk materials but rarely in optical microresonators. The possibility of experimentally extending this principle to excite mechanical resonances in photonic microsystems, for sensing and frequency reference applications, has remained largely unexplored. The challenge lies in the fact that microresonators inherently have large free spectral range, while the phase matching considerations for the Brillouin process require optical modes of nearby frequencies but with different wavevectors. We rely on high-order transverse optical modes to relax this limitation. Here we report on the experimental excitation of mechanical resonances ranging from 49 to 1400 MHz by using forward Brillouin scattering. These natural mechanical resonances are excited in ~100 um silica microspheres, and are of a surface-acoustic whispering-gallery type

Laser oscillation in a strongly coupled single quantum dot-nanocavity system

Strong coupling of photons and materials in semiconductor nanocavity systems has been investigated because of its potentials in quantum information processing and related applications, and has been testbeds for cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED). Interesting phenomena such as coherent exchange of a single quantum between a single quantum dot and an optical cavity, called vacuum Rabi oscillation, and highly efficient cavity QED lasers have been reported thus far. The coexistence of vacuum Rabi oscillation and laser oscillation appears to be contradictory in nature, because the fragile reversible process may not survive in laser oscillation. However, recently, it has been theoretically predicted that the strong-coupling effect could be sustained in laser oscillation in properly designed semiconductor systems. Nevertheless, the experimental realization of this phenomenon has remained difficult since the first demonstration of the strong-coupling, because an extremely high cavity quality factor and strong light-matter coupling are both required for this purpose. Here, we demonstrate the onset of laser oscillation in the strong-coupling regime in a single quantum dot (SQD)-cavity system. A high-quality semiconductor optical nanocavity and strong SQD-field coupling enabled to the onset of lasing while maintaining the fragile coherent exchange of quanta between the SQD and the cavity. In addition to the interesting physical features, this device is seen as a prototype of an ultimate solid state light source with an SQD gain, which operates at ultra-low power, with expected applications in future nanophotonic integrated systems and monolithic quantum information devices.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure