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Deterministic photon–emitter coupling in chiral photonic circuits

Nature Nanotechnology volume 10, pages 775–778 (2015)Cite this article

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Abstract

Engineering photon emission and scattering is central to modern photonics applications ranging from light harvesting to quantum-information processing. To this end, nanophotonic waveguides are well suited as they confine photons to a one-dimensional geometry and thereby increase the light–matter interaction. In a regular waveguide, a quantum emitter interacts equally with photons in either of the two propagation directions. This symmetry is violated in nanophotonic structures in which non-transversal local electric-field components imply that photon emission1,2 and scattering3 may become directional. Here we show that the helicity of the optical transition of a quantum emitter determines the direction of single-photon emission in a specially engineered photonic-crystal waveguide. We observe single-photon emission into the waveguide with a directionality that exceeds 90% under conditions in which practically all the emitted photons are coupled to the waveguide. The chiral light–matter interaction enables deterministic and highly directional photon emission for experimentally achievable on-chip non-reciprocal photonic elements. These may serve as key building blocks for single-photon optical diodes, transistors4 and deterministic quantum gates5. Furthermore, chiral photonic circuits allow the dissipative preparation of entangled states of multiple emitters6 for experimentally achievable parameters7, may lead to novel topological photon states8,9 and could be applied for directional steering of light10,11,12,13.

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Figure 1: Operational principle of chiral single-photon emission in a waveguide.
Figure 2: Observation of directional emission of single QDs in a GPW.
Figure 3: Non-reciprocal transport of photons in a chiral photonic circuit.

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Acknowledgements

We thank A. Sørensen and D. Witthaut for valuable discussions and gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Villum Foundation, the Carlsberg Foundation, the Danish Council for Independent Research (Natural Sciences and Technology and Production Sciences), and the European Research Council (ERC Consolidator Grant ALLQUANTUM). E.H.L. and J.D.S. acknowledge support from the Global Research Lab and the Flagship Program (Korea Institute of Science and Technology).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Blegdamsvej 17, Copenhagen, DK-2100, Denmark

    Immo Söllner, Sahand Mahmoodian, Sofie Lindskov Hansen, Leonardo Midolo, Alisa Javadi, Gabija Kiršanskė, Tommaso Pregnolato, Haitham El-Ella, Søren Stobbe & Peter Lodahl

  2. Center for Opto-Electronic Convergence Systems, Korea Institute of Science and Technology, Seoul, 136-791, Korea

    Eun Hye Lee & Jin Dong Song

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  1. Immo Söllner
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Contributions

I.S. and S.M. designed the experiment and analysed the data. S.M. and A.J. performed the numerical simulations. I.S. and S.L.H. carried out the experiments. L.M., G.K., T.P. and H.E. fabricated the sample. E.H.L. and J.D.S. grew the semiconductor material. P.L. and S.S. supervised the project. P.L., S.S., S.M. and I.S. wrote the manuscript with input from all the authors.

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Correspondence to Immo Söllner or Peter Lodahl.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Söllner, I., Mahmoodian, S., Hansen, S. et al. Deterministic photon–emitter coupling in chiral photonic circuits. Nature Nanotech 10, 775–778 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2015.159

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