Hannover 2016 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 66: Quantum Effects: QED III

Q 66.2: Vortrag

Freitag, 4. März 2016, 11:30–11:45, f442

Nonreciprocal light propagation based on chiral interaction of light and matter — •Adèle Hilico, Elisa Will, Michael Scheucher, Jürgen Volz, and Arno Rauschenbeutel — Vienna Center for Quantum Science and Technology, Atominstitut, TU Wien

Nanophotonic components confine light at the wavelength scale and enable the control of the flow of light in an integrated optical environment. Such strong confinement leads to an inherent link between the local polarization of the light and its propagation direction and fundamentally alters the physics of light-matter interaction [1]. We employ this effect to demonstrate low-loss nonreciprocal transmission of light at the single-photon level through a silica nanofiber. For this purpose, we use a single spin-polarized atom that is strongly coupled to the nanofiber via a whispering-gallery-mode resonator [1]. These resonators provide very long photon lifetimes and near lossless in- and out-coupling of light via tapered fiber couplers. This renders them ideal for the investigation of nonreciprocal light propagation based on chiral light-matter interaction. In a first experiment, we study the on-resonance performance of the system and observe a strong imbalance between the transmissions in forward and reverse direction of 13 dB while the forward transmission still exceeds 70% [2]. The resulting optical isolator exemplifies a new class of nanophotonic devices based on chiral interaction of light and matter, where the state of single quantum emitters defines the directional behavior.

[1] C. Junge et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 213604 (2013).

[2] C. Sayrin et al., arXiv 1502.01549 (2015).