Coherent interaction of atoms with a beam of light confined in a light cage

Davidson-Marquis, Flavie; Gargiulo, Julián; Gómez-López, Esteban; Jang, Bumjoon; Kroh, Tim; Muller, Christopher; Ziegler, Mario; Maier, Stefan A.; Kübler, Harald; Schmidt, Markus; Benson, Oliver

doi:10.1038/s41377-021-00556-z

Cited by 22 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…Note that other FOMs have been reported in the context of coherent interaction of atoms with light, but these are not relevant for the dimensions and frequencies considered.…”

Section: Figures Of Meritmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This effectively provides diffractionless propagation through free space, albeit at the cost of small propagation losses due to the leaky nature of the guided modes of such structures. This kind of waveguide is particularly attractive for applications that demand long-length light-matter interactions, e.g., gas and liquid sensing, because it immediately contains any analytes within the waveguide core section. So far, such devices have been designed to operate in the visible and near-infrared regime − (all fabricated via 3D-nanoprinting), only in straight configurations, and with the transmittance and modes measured in the far field.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This kind of waveguide is particularly attractive for applications that demand long-length light-matter interactions, e.g., gas and liquid sensing, because it immediately contains any analytes within the waveguide core section. So far, such devices have been designed to operate in the visible and near-infrared regime − (all fabricated via 3D-nanoprinting), only in straight configurations, and with the transmittance and modes measured in the far field. To the best of our knowledge, a detailed study of any light cage’s guidance and sensing characteristics in the THz regime is still missing.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Flexible Terahertz Photonic Light-Cage Modules for In-Core Sensing and High Temperature Applications

et al. 2022

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Terahertz technology is a growing and multidisciplinary research field, particularly in applications relating to sensing and telecommunications. A number of terahertz waveguides have emerged over the past few years, which are set to complement the capabilities of existing and bulky free-space setups. In most terahertz waveguide designs, however, the guiding region is physically separated from the surroundings, making any interaction between the guided light and the environment inefficient. Here, we present photonic terahertz light cages (THzLCs) operating at terahertz frequencies, consisting of freestanding dielectric strands, which guide light within a central hollow core with immediate access to the environment. We experimentally show the versatility and design flexibility of this concept by 3Dprinting several cm-length-scale modules on the basis of a single design, using four different polymer and ceramic materials, which are either rigid, flexible, or resistant to high temperatures. We characterize both propagation and bend losses for straight and curved waveguides, which, in the range 0.25−0.7 THz, are of order ∼1 dB/cm in the former and ∼2−8 dB/cm in the latter for bend radii below 10 cm and are largely independent of the chosen material. Our transmission experiments are complemented by near-field measurements at the waveguide output, which reveal the antiresonant guidance for straight THzLCs and a deformed fundamental mode in the bent waveguides, in agreement with numerical conformal mapping simulation models. We show that these THzLCs can be used as (i) flexible, reconfigurable, and bendable modular assemblies; (ii) in-core sensors of resonant structures contained directly inside the hollow core; or (iii) high-temperature waveguide sensors, with potential applications in industrial monitoring and sensing. Finally, we introduce and discuss appropriate figures of merit for quantifying the performance of light cage guidance with respect to free-space propagation. The 3D-printed light cages presented are a novel and useful addition to the growing library of terahertz waveguides, marrying the waveguidelike advantages of reconfigurable, diffractionless propagation with the free-space-like immediacy of direct exposure to the surrounding environment. KEYWORDS: terahertz photonics, hollow core waveguide, 3D printing, terahertz spectroscopy, antiresonant guidance, figure of merit ■ INTRODUCTIONRecent years have been marked by a rapid development in sources, detectors, and waveguides operating in the terahertz frequency range (∼0.1−10 THz), a range which has the unique capability of serving a number of far-reaching and diverse applications areas. 1,2 These areas include sensing and spectroscopy (e.g., of gases, 3 molecules, 4 or DNA 5,6 ), imaging and security, 7−9 pharmaceutical research, 10 broadband wireless communication (6G), 11 and industrial applications. 12 The significance and history of systems operating in this frequency range are broadly appreciated, 13 but even as the number of THz sources and detectors...

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“…Note that other FOMs have been reported in the context of coherent interaction of atoms with light, but these are not relevant for the dimensions and frequencies considered.…”

Section: Figures Of Meritmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Flexible Terahertz Photonic Light-Cage Modules for In-Core Sensing and High Temperature Applications

et al. 2022

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“…This kind of waveguide is particularly attractive for applications which demand long-length light-matter interactions, 43 e.g., gas 41 and liquid 44 sensing, immediately containing any analytes within the waveguide core section. So far, such devices have been designed to operate in the visible and near-infrared regime [41][42][43][44] (all fabricated via 3Dnanoprinting), only in straight configurations, with the transmittance and modes measured in the far field.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Flexible terahertz photonic light-cage modules for in-core sensing and high temperature applications

Stefani¹,

Kuhlmey²,

Digweed³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Terahertz technology is a growing and multi-disciplinary research field, particularly in applications relating to sensing and telecommunications. A number of terahertz waveguides have emerged over the past few years, which are set to complement the capabilities of existing and bulky free space setups. In most terahertz waveguide designs however, the guiding region is physically separated from the surroundings, making any interaction between the guided light and the environment inefficient. Here we present photonic terahertz light cages (THzLCs) operating at terahertz frequencies, consisting of free-standing dielectric strands, which guide light within a central hollow core with immediate access to the environment. We experimentally show the versatility and design flexibility of this concept, by 3D-printing several cm-length-scale modules on the basis of a single design, using four different polymer-and ceramic-materials, which are either rigid, flexible, or resistant to high temperatures.We characterize both propagation-and bend-losses for straight-and curved-waveguides, which are of order ∼1 dB/cm in the former, and ∼2-8 dB/cm in the latter for bend radii below 10 cm, and largely independent of the chosen material. Our transmission experiments are complemented by near-field measurements at the waveguide output, which reveal the antiresonant guidance for straight THzLCs, and a deformed fundamental mode in the bent waveguides, in agreement with numerical conformal mapping simulation models. We show that these THzLCs can be used either as: (i) flexible, reconfigurable, and bendable modular assemblies; (ii) in-core sensors of resonant structures contained directly inside the hollow core; (iii) high-temperature waveguide sensors, with potential applications in industrial monitoring and sensing. The 3D-printed light cages presented are a novel and useful addition to the growing library of terahertz waveguides, marrying the waveguide-like advantages of reconfigurable, diffractionless propagation, with the free-space-like immediacy of direct exposure to the surrounding environment.

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“…26 A remarkable feature of the light cage geometry is its side-wise openness, which allows surrounding species to laterally diffuse into the core region. This feature has been utilized in a series of experiments, including alkali-vapor based electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) 27 and on-chip absorption spectroscopy in liquid 28 and gas 29 environments. As the light cage is realized through two-photon polymerization (TPP) based direct laser writing, 23 this 3D nanoprinting implementation approach uniquely offers opportunities to locally modify the structure already in the implementation step, avoiding postprocessing (e.g., waveguide perforation through ion-beam drilling 30,31 ).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Locally Structured On-Chip Optofluidic Hollow-Core Light Cages for Single Nanoparticle Tracking

et al. 2022

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Nanoparticle tracking analysis (NTA) is a widely used methodology to investigate nanoscale systems at the single species level. Here, we introduce the locally structured on-chip optofluidic hollow-core light cage, as a novel platform for waveguide-assisted NTA. This hollow waveguide guides light by the antiresonant effect in a sparse array of dielectric strands and includes a local modification to realize aberration-free tracking of individual nano-objects, defining a novel on-chip solution with properties specifically tailored for NTA. The key features of our system are (i) well-controlled nano-object illumination through the waveguide mode, (ii) diffraction-limited and aberration-free imaging at the observation site, and (iii) a high level of integration, achieved by on-chip interfacing to fibers. The present study covers all aspects relevant for NTA including design, simulation, implementation via 3D nanoprinting, and optical characterization. The capabilities of the approach to precisely characterize practically relevant nanosystems have been demonstrated by measuring the solvency-induced collapse of a nanoparticle system which includes polymer brush-based shells that react to changes in the liquid environment. Our study unlocks the advantages of the light cage approach in the context of NTA, suggesting its application in various areas such as bioanalytics, life science, environmental science, or nanoscale material science in general.

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Coherent interaction of atoms with a beam of light confined in a light cage

Cited by 22 publications

References 57 publications

Flexible Terahertz Photonic Light-Cage Modules for In-Core Sensing and High Temperature Applications

Flexible Terahertz Photonic Light-Cage Modules for In-Core Sensing and High Temperature Applications

Flexible terahertz photonic light-cage modules for in-core sensing and high temperature applications

Locally Structured On-Chip Optofluidic Hollow-Core Light Cages for Single Nanoparticle Tracking

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