Transcript Slide 1

High-Q small-V Photonic-Crystal
Microcavities
control of light
Kirill Atlasov
Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
Laboratory of Physics of Nanostructures
Lausanne, Switzerland
Control of light: in Nature
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Control of Light. Us.
Manipulation: create, select
spectrally, guide, interact, (store),
detect
In a predefined way.
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Purposes: calculus,
communication,
data storage
courtesy MIT
(http://ab-initio.mit.edu/photons)
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Microcavities: Control of Light
What to control ?
- They can be used as coupling blocks and filters in photonic circuits
- Control of Spontaneous Emission of a light source
modify broad-band source (QWR)
"speed up" atom-like source (QD)
Hennessy, et al, Nature 445, 896, (2007)
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Purcell effect
Vahala, Nature, 424, 839, (2003)
emitter decays by interaction with continuum
rate ~ density of states per volume V
DoScavity > DoSfree (resonantly)
rate ~ DoS per volume V
 fast decay rate of emitter
 spont. em. directed into mode
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Microcavities: Control of Light
What to control ?
- They can be used as coupling blocks and filters in photonic circuits
- Control of Spontaneous Emission of a light source
modify broad-band source (QWR)
"speed up" atom-like source (QD)
Hennessy, et al, Nature 445, 896, (2007)
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Cavity Figure of merit: Q V
So, the figure of merit is about
What is it good for?
Q and V
Cavity Figure of merit: Q/V. What is it good for?
Indistinguishable photons
(identical wave packets for linear-optical
quantum computation)
Santori et al, Nature, 419, 594, (2002)
LED exhibiting laser-like
performance (β - spontaneous emission
Into cavity mode)
Yablonovitch in Confined electrons and photons:
New physics and applications, (Burstein, Weisbuch, eds)
vol. 340 NATO ASI ser.B. Plenum Press (1995)
LASER (β - spontaneous emission
Into lasing mode – low threshold)
Few QD laser: Strauf et al, PRL 96, 127404, (2006)
Strong coupling regime
(transfer of energy between oscillators)
Khitrova et al, Nat. Phys. 2, 81, (2006)

1
8  Vcav
1
3
( / n ) Q
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Photonic-crystal Microcavities
In principle, any defect of the periodicity.
John, PRL 58, 2486, (1987)
Most practical – membrane PhC
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How does it compare to other possibilities?
Srinivasan et al,
APL 424, 839, (2003)
Vahala, Nature 424, 839, (2003)
In PhC
V < (λ/n)3
Noda et al, Nature 425, 944 (2003)
Park et al, Science 305, 1444, (2004)
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Interesting examples: LASERs
Electrical pumping QW PhC laser
Few-QD laser
Strauf et al, PRL 96, 127404, (2006)
β = 0.85
Park et al, Science 305, 1444, (2004)
β = 0.25
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Interesting examples: Indistinguishable photons
Two-photon interference (QD in PhC)
Laurent et al, APL 87, 163107, (2005)
Two-photon interference
(QD in micropillar)
Santori et al, Nature 419, 594, (2002)
If 2 indistinguishable photos collide
at the beamsplitter they exit via the same port!!
=> 2-photon inteference
Hong et al, PRL 59, 2044, (1987)
Cannot arive then at different detectors
at the same time
Probability that two colliding photons at
beamsplitter exit via two diferent ports is
low (given directly by correlation)
Interesting feature: Strong Light-matter Coupling
(transfer of energy between oscillators)
Strong coupling
(photons here)
1
decay κ
2
decay γ
If coupling strength between
two same-energy oscillators
exceeds the mean of their
decay rates, the coupled
system has two energies –
their states split
Khitrova et al, Nat. Phys. 2, 81, (2006)
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Interesting feature: Strong Light-matter Coupling
The decay rate (of photon) ~ 1/Q
And the coupling strength g ~ 1 / V
(vacuum field fluctuations
per volume)
Wanted:
 high Q
 small mode volume V
Khitrova et al, Nat. Phys. 2, 81, (2006)
transition from Purcell enhancement
to Rabi splitting
Interesting feature: Strong Light-matter Coupling
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1 QD in PhC
Yoshie et al, Nature 432, 200, (2004)
Q = 16000 – 20000
Rabi splitting at around zero detuning
When tuned, anticrossing behavior
Very high-Q: Cavity geometry optimization. Q = 600 000.
Akahane et al, Nat. Mater 4, 208, (2005)
FT if Two mirrors
FT of Gaussian envelope
In real space
Two different waveguides...
WG 2 stretched...
Bandgap -> transmission...
Photons with specific energies
can exist only in the WG 2
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Ey
Intensity (arb units)
High Q: cavity termination adjustments. Polarization
even
odd
Ex
normalized frequency f (c/a)
ky (2π/a)
|Ex| k-space
K.F Karlsson, K.A. Atlasov unpublished
0
-1
0
1
kx (2π/a)
Q from 1500 goes
upto >100 000
SUMMARY
high Q
small V
Strong coupling
1
2
end
additional stuff
For non-lasing devices β>0.9 have been estimated (0.97)
(Kress et al, PRB, 71, 241304, (2005)