Cavity quantum electrodynamics with three-dimensional photonic band gap crystals

Abstract

Three-dimensional (3D) photonic crystals with a 3D photonic bandgap play a fundamental role in cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED), especially in phenomena where the local density of optical states is essential. We first review the current status of the fabrication of 3D photonic crystals with a bandgap at optical frequencies, corresponding to wavelengths below 2500 nm. We discuss the main implications of 3D bandgaps for cavity QED, in particular spontaneous emission inhibition of emitters embedded in a 3D bandgap crystal. Moreover, we review progress in enhanced emission of emitters placed in a photonic bandgap cavity, thresholdless laser action in a miniature photonic crystal cavity, breaking of the weak-couping limit of cavity QED. Finally, we discuss several exciting applications of 3D photonic band gap crystals, namely the shielding of decoherence for quantum information science, the manipulation of multiple coupled emitters including resonant energy transfer, lighting, and possible spin-off to 3D nanofabrication for future high-end computing.

Cartesian light: Unconventional propagation of light in a three-dimensional superlattice of coupled cavities within a three-dimensional photonic band gap

“…An attractive future line of research will be initiated by studying a 3D cavity superlattice where each cavity holds an active material, such as one (or more) two-level atom. This hybrid combination allows one to explore light-matter interactions deep inside the band gap that are well shielded from any perturbing vacuum fluctuations by the surrounding 3D photonic band gap [70]. Indeed, recent parallel work has pointed out that with inverse woodpile cavities one can observe a substantially enhanced optical absorption at the cavity locations, which offers favorable opportunities for tiny optical sensors [50].…”

Semiconductor Three-Dimensional Photonic Crystals with Novel Layer-by-Layer Structures

“…For example, a complete photonic bandgap (cPBG), which prohibits light propagation along any direction in any polarization state, offers the ultimate ability to manipulate light-matter interactions [15]. Moreover, utilizing the third dimension will add new degrees of freedom for controlling the optical response of structures.…”

Controlled light propagation in random, periodic, and superperiodic silicon nanophotonic materials

“…Since the local density of states (LDOS) [62,63] also vanishes in a 3D photonic band gap, the 3D gap is a powerful tool to radically control spontaneous emission and cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED) of embedded quantum emitters [28,[64][65][66]. Applications of 3D photonic band gap crystals range from dielectric reflectors for antennae [67] and for efficient photovoltaic cells [68][69][70], via white light-emitting diodes [71], mode and polarization converter [72] to elaborate 3D waveguides [73,74], for 3D photonic integrated circuits [75], to miniature lasers [76,77] and to devices that control quantum noise for quantum measurement, amplification, and information processing [66,78].…”

“…An increasing pore radius corresponds to an increasing air volume fraction, hence to a decreasing effective refractive index. All gap centers shift to higher frequencies which makes sense, since a gap center frequency ω c is equal to ω c = c0 n eff .k BZ .G [18,66], with c 0 the speed of light (not to be confused with the lattice parameter c), n eff the effective refractive index of the photonic crystal [178], and G a structure factor [57]. The 3D photonic band gap exists within the broad range 0.14 < r/a < 0.29 with a maximum width at r/a = 0.245, as reported earlier [107,109].…”

“…Thanks to extensive efforts in nanotechnology, great strides have been made in the fabrication of 3D nanostructures that interact strongly with light such that they possess a 3D complete photonic band gap [66,[149][150][151]. Remarkably, however, it remains a considerable challenge to decide firstly whether a 3D nanostructure has a bona fide photonic band gap functionality or not, and secondly to assess how broad such a band gap is, which is critical for the robustness of the functionality.…”