Enhanced light‐vapor interactions and all optical switching in a chip scale micro‐ring resonator coupled with atomic vapor

Abstract

The coupling of atomic and photonic resonances serves as an important tool for enhancing light‐matter interactions and enables the observation of multitude of fascinating and fundamental phenomena. Here, by exploiting the platform of atomic‐cladding wave guides, the resonant coupling of rubidium vapor and an atomic cladding micro ring resonator is experimentally demonstrated. Specifically, cavity‐atom coupling in the form of Fano resonances having a distinct dependency on the relative frequency detuning between the photonic and the atomic resonances is observed. Moreover, significant enhancement of the efficiency of all optical switching in the V‐type pump‐probe scheme is demonstrated. The coupled system of micro‐ring resonator and atomic vapor is a promising building block for a variety of light vapor experiments, as it offers a very small footprint, high degree of integration and extremely strong confinement of light and vapor. As such it may be used for important applications, such as all optical switching, dispersion engineering (e.g. slow and fast light) and metrology, as well as for the observation of important effects such as strong coupling, and Purcell enhancement.

Nanostructured Alkali-Metal Vapor Cells

“…Promising further technological developments on the micrometer scale include integrated diffractive elements [54]. As well as the fundamental interest in atom-light interactions at the nanoscale already highlighted, there is also interest in interfacing thermal vapors with nanophotonics [55][56][57][58] and integrated opto-mechanical features [59]. However, much work remains to be done before nanometer-scale vapor-based devices can be used in technological applications, e.g., for local sensing [15] or quantum networks [36,60].…”

Ultra-precise optical to radio frequency based chip-scale refractive index and temperature sensor

“…Here, the reference MRR is encapsulated and the sensing MRR is exposed to the environment. Similar designs have been reported in the context of atomic spectroscopy with rubidium atoms integrated above a MRR [34]. Finally, we address the prospects of fully integrating the above-demonstrated system, including sources, detectors, and servo-loops, into a chip-scale sensor.…”

Demonstration of an integrated nanophotonic chip-scale alkali vapor magnetometer using inverse design

“…Over the last few years, there has been growing interest in developing quantum integrated systems and miniaturizing rubidium cells ranging from the centimeter scale to the micro- and nanoscale. A significant step forward is achieved by combining alkali vapor with guided wave configurations like photonic crystal fibers 1 , 2 , antiresonant waveguides 3 , and tapered fibers 4 , 5 , and with nanoscale photonic structures, including nanowaveguides 6 – 8 , resonators 9 , 10 , and nanoantennas 11 . In addition to the obvious advantages of such integration, other great qualities result from this approach.…”