Quantum interference in photonic lattices with defects

Abstract

Light trapping in photonic lattices at a linear defect shows interesting nonclassical behavior when probed by maximally path-entangled N -photon states (NOON states). In particular, photon coincidences of localized light at the defect oscillate at a spatial frequency that is N times faster than the classical beating spatial frequency of the defect modes, resembling the λ/N oscillations of NOON states encountered in Mach-Zehnder interferometry. Analytical results of quantum interference are presented for an exactly solvable tight-binding waveguide array.

Perfect absorption and no reflection in disordered photonic crystals

“…11, where results (red-circle curve) for self-correlated disorder [Eqs. (11) and (12)] are compared here to results obtained with an artificial constant value of the phase mismatch φ (c)…”

“…Among them, unidirectional reflectionless (URL) media [1][2][3], where reflection from one side is significantly suppressed, and coherent perfect absorption (CPA) media [4][5][6][7][8][9][10], where the two-sided incident waves are completely quenched, are extensively studied wave phenomena, especially in optics [6,[9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. On-chip implementation of URL media, e.g., is expected to underpin a new generation of photonic devices [18], while CPA media clearly provides an additional flexibility to tune absorption when compared to perfect one-port absorbers.…”

Coherent perfect absorbers: linear control of light with light

“…However, unlike a laser, where the lasing mode emerges through self-organization [40], perfect absorption requires the supply of exactly the right incident waveform. It is unclear whether there can be any useful CPA analog of laser self-organization -it could be perhaps found in the presence of nonlinear absorptive media, as suggested by several theoretical studies [42,43,139,140,152]. Furthermore, interesting variants of the time-reversal concept have been formulated for nonlinear processes such as wave mixing and parametric oscillations [153][154][155].…”

“…Owing to the dispersive nature of a two-level medium, when gain is replaced by absorption, not only does the imaginary part of ε(r) change sign, but so does the real part, whereas time-reversal symmetry requires the transformation ε → ε * . As a result, the CPA frequency is gener- ally different from the lasing frequency in the equivalent system [139]. The inherent nonlinearity of a two-level medium also leads to bistability and hysteresis in the input-output characteristic of the system.…”

Exact dynamics of finite Glauber-Fock photonic lattices

“…Examples of such quantum effects are Bloch oscillations in lattices with linearly varying on-site refraction index [1][2][3][4], Zeno effect due to a defect in the coupling between the first two waveguide in a lattice with otherwise homogeneously coupled components [5], random walks in homogeneous lattices [6][7][8], Anderson localization in homogeneous lattices where controlled disorder has been added [9,10] and the effect of isolated defects on quantum correlations [11]. In particular, lattices where the coupling is homogeneous are well understood and their analytical closed form time evolution is well known [6,[12][13][14].…”