Controlled Cavity-Free, Single-Photon Emission and Bipartite Entanglement of Near-Field-Excited Quantum Emitters

Nano Lett. 2020 Aug 12;20(8):5830-5836. doi: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.0c01705. Epub 2020 Jun 29.

Abstract

We report theoretical statistics of 1- and 2-qubit (bipartite) systems, namely, photon antibunching and entanglement, of near-field excited quantum emitters. The sub-diffraction focusing of a plasmonic waveguide is shown to generate enough power over a sufficiently small region (<50 × 50 nm2) to strongly drive quantum emitters. This enables ultrafast (10-14 s) single-photon emission as well as creates entangled states between two emitters when performing a controlled-NOT operation. A comparative analysis of silicon and near-zero index materials demonstrates advantages and uncovers challenges of embedding quantum emitters for single-photon emission and for bipartite entanglement. The use of a movable plasmonic waveguide, in lieu of stationary nanostructures, allows high-speed rasterization between sets of qubits and enables spatially flexible data storage and quantum information processing. Furthermore, the sub-diffraction focusing of the waveguide is shown to achieve cavity-free dynamic entanglement. This greatly reduces fabrication constraints and increases the speed and scalability of nanophotonic quantum devices.

Keywords: Entanglement; near-field transducer; near-zero index media; plasmonic waveguide; quantum emitter; single-photon emission.