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All-optical coherent control of vacuum Rabi oscillations

Nature Photonics volume 8, pages 858–864 (2014)Cite this article

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Abstract

When an atom strongly couples to a cavity, the two systems can coherently exchange a single quantum excitation through the process of vacuum Rabi oscillation. Controlling this process enables precise synthesis of non-classical light, which plays a central role in quantum information and measurement. Although this control has been realized in microwave-frequency devices, it has been difficult to achieve at optical frequencies, which are essential for quantum communication and metrology. Here, we demonstrate coherent control of vacuum Rabi oscillation in an optical frequency device. We use a photonic molecule composed of two coupled nanocavities to simultaneously achieve strong coupling and a cavity-enhanced a.c. Stark shift. The Stark shift tunes a single quantum dot onto resonance with the photonic molecule on picosecond timescales, creating fast coherent transfer of energy between an atomic and photonic excitation. These results enable ultrafast control of light–matter quantum interactions in a nanophotonic device platform.

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Figure 1: Device design and experimental set-up.
Figure 2: Characterization of photonic molecule modes.
Figure 3: Stark shift-mediated energy transfer.
Figure 4: Rabi oscillations.
Figure 5: Coherent control of polariton energy transfer.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge support from the Army Research Office Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative on Hybrid Quantum Interactions (grant no. W911NF09104), the Physics Frontier Center at the Joint Quantum Institute, and the Office of Naval Research Applied Electromagnetics Center. E.W. acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award (grant no. ECCS. 0846494).

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Author notes

  1. Ranojoy Bose and Tao Cai: These authors contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical Engineering and Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, 20742, Maryland, USA

    Ranojoy Bose, Tao Cai, Kaushik Roy Choudhury & Edo Waks

  2. Joint Quantum Institute, University of Maryland and National Institute of Standards and Technology, College Park, 20742, Maryland, USA

    Glenn S. Solomon & Edo Waks

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  1. Ranojoy Bose
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  2. Tao Cai
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Contributions

E.W. conceived and designed the experiment. R.B. and T.C. designed and fabricated the device, conducted experiments and carried out analysis. K.R.C., E.W., T.C. and R.B. performed theoretical simulations. R.B. and E.W. wrote the manuscript, with input from all authors. G.S.S. grew the quantum-dot wafer. E.W. supervised the work.

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Correspondence to Edo Waks.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Bose, R., Cai, T., Choudhury, K. et al. All-optical coherent control of vacuum Rabi oscillations. Nature Photon 8, 858–864 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2014.224

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