Multichannel Quantum Emission with On-Chip Emitter-Coupled Holographic Metasurfaces

ACS Nano. 2023 Oct 24;17(20):20308-20314. doi: 10.1021/acsnano.3c06309. Epub 2023 Oct 4.

Abstract

Multichannel quantum emission is in high demand for advanced quantum photonic applications such as quantum communications, quantum computing, and quantum cryptography. However, to date, the most common way for shaping photon emission from quantum emitters (QEs) is to utilize free-standing (external) bulky optical components. Here, we develop the multichannel holography approach for flexibly designing on-chip QE-coupled metasurfaces that make use of nonradiatively QE-excited surface plasmon polaritons for generating far-field quantum emission, which propagates in designed directions carrying specific spin and orbital angular momenta (SAM and OAM, respectively). We further design, fabricate, and characterize on-chip quantum light sources of multichannel quantum emission encoded with different SAMs and OAMs. The holography-based inverse design approach developed and demonstrated on-chip quantum light sources with multiple degrees of freedoms, thereby enabling a powerful platform for quantum nanophotonics, especially relevant for advanced quantum photonic applications, e.g., high-dimensional quantum information processing.

Keywords: angular momentum; holography; metasurfaces; multichannel; quantum emitter; vortex.