Subwavelength vacuum lattices and atom–atom interactions in two-dimensional photonic crystals

By Alejandro González-Tudela, Chen-Lung Hung, Darrick E. Chang, J. I. Cirac, H. Jeff Kimble. Nature Photonics, 2014

282 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Quantum simulation with cold atoms in optical lattices is an attractive avenue for explorations of quantum many-body physics. A principal challenge in the field is to increase the energy and length scales in current set-ups, thereby reducing temperature and coherence-time requirements. Here, we present a new paradigm for high-density, two-dimensional optical lattices in photonic crystal waveguides. Specially engineered two-dimensional photonic crystals provide a practical platform to trap atoms and engineer their interactions in ways that surpass the limitations of current technologies and enable investigations of novel quantum many-body matter. Our schemes remove the constraint on the lattice constant set by the free-space optical wavelength in favour of deeply sub-wavelength atomic arrays. We further describe possibilities for atom–atom interactions mediated by photons in two-dimensional photonic crystal waveguides with energy scales several orders of magnitude larger than for exchange interactions in free-space lattices and with the capability to engineer strongly long-range interactions. Novel trapping mechanisms for ultracold atoms in specially engineered two-dimensional photonic crystals are proposed. The photonic crystal waveguides provide versatile means for creating strongly long-range atom–atom interactions mediated by photons.

Subfields: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/89d88f05354d7402d9044b2ab16cd1afcf7df39c

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Citations in the corpus

Quantum simulation with interacting photons (2016, background): “Besides their application as quantum simulators, the approaches to generate effective quantum many-body Hamiltonians discussed in this review, also call for investigations of the many-body phenomena they give rise to.”
Many-Body Quantum Spin Dynamics with Monte Carlo Trajectories on a Discrete Phase Space (2014, background): “trapped ions [9–12], alkaline earth atoms [44], and solidstate systems, such as nitrogen-vacancy centers [45–47], plasmonic lattices [48], and photonic crystals [49].”
High-Q silicon nitride microresonators exhibiting low-power frequency comb initiation (2016, background): “When such resonators are integrated with other photonic and electronic devices on a silicon (Si) chip or a multichip assembly to achieve stable and tunable operation, they can bring a large range of applications onto chips, including linear and nonlinear optical information processing [2,3], spectro”
Exponential Improvement in Photon Storage Fidelities Using Subradiance and “Selective Radiance” in Atomic Arrays (2017, background): “Finally, periodically patterned 1D or 2D dielectric structures can readily yield subwavelength trapping potentials, with the periodicity of the structure itself [79,111].”
Quantum Simulators: Architectures and Opportunities (2019, background): “[62] Alejandro González-Tudela, C-L Hung, Darrick E Chang, J Ignacio Cirac, and HJ Kimble.”