|
Chemical Synthesis and Nonlinear Optics in Microchannels
|
|
Funding: Center for Nanoscale Systems
|
|
Quantum and nonlinear optical properties offer
many exciting opportunities for technological
breakthroughs. One of these is in data storage, in which nonlinear
optical techniques have the potential to store
information using single photons. In many cases, the underlying
optical process for realizing these schemes
has been electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT), a
nonlinear optical technique by which a material
is made transparent to
radiation of one frequency by using laser light
at a different frequency to generate
a coherent superposition of states. This concept
has been expanded to schemes that allow two extremely weak
fields--which, in principle, can consist of
single photon pulses--to strongly interact.
Practical implementation of these proposals in
which a single photon can switch another
photon could lead to the realization of critical
components (e.g., quantum phase gates) for
quantum information applications.
Photonic band-gap fibers (PBGFs) offer unmatched
ability to both (a) tightly confine light into a
small region (e.g., 10 microns) and
(b) allow this light to propagate for long
pathlengths (say, meters). However, these fibers
(until recently) could not be used
to induce atom-light interactions because of the
chemical incompatibilities of atomic vapors with
the silica material from
which PBGFs are constructed.
Our group currently collaborates with
Alex Gaeta's group to create devices with
novel nonlinear and quantum optical
properties. We have performed liquid-phase
microfluidic chemical synthesis inside photonic
band-gap crystal fibers, generating fibers that
retain their
bandgap and transmission properties but present
different surface properties to atomic gases.
By combining novel
microfluidic chemical synthesis with laser-induced
atomic desorption techniques, we have generated
dense atomic vapors inside the core
of PBGFs.
By creating dense atomic vapors inside PBGFs, we
have been able to demonstrate EIT at light
irradiances several orders of magnitude lower
than previous
work, moving us significantly closer to our
long-term vision of single-photon switching for quantum networks.
|
Publications and Presentations on Chemical Synthesis and Nonlinear Optics in Microchannels
|
|
Tandon V,
Ghosh S, Bhagwat AR, Renshaw CK, Goh S, Gaeta AL,
Kirby BJ
"In-situ microfluidic synthesis of materials for nonlinear optical
devices: control of atomic vapor populations in microchannel waveguides",
MicroTAS 2007, Paris, France, October 2007.
|
 |
Ghosh S, Bhagwat AR, Renshaw CK, Goh S, Gaeta AL,
Kirby BJ
"Low-light-level optical interactions with rubidium vapor in a photonic band-gap fiber,"
Physical Review Letters 97:023603 (2006).
doi
pdf
arxiv
|
|
Ghosh S, Bhagwat AR, Renshaw CK, Goh S, Gaeta AL,
Kirby BJ
"Nonlinear optical interactions with rubidium atoms confined in a hollow-core photonic
crystal fiber,"
CLEO-QELS 2006 Long Beach, CA, May 2006.
|
|
Ghosh S, Bhagwat AR, Renshaw CK, Goh S, Gaeta AL,
Kirby BJ
"Coherent interactions with rubidium atoms confined in a hollow-core photonic
bnad-gap fiber,"
APS DAMOP 2006 Annual Meeting Knoxville, TN, May 2006.
|
|
|
