Strong coupling and high-contrast all-optical modulation in atomic cladding waveguides.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 28181510.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/ncomms14461 and PMC identifier 5309768.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
In recent years, there has been marked increase in research aimed to introduce alkali vapours into guided-wave configurations. Owing to the significant reduction in device dimensions, the increase in density of states, the interaction with surfaces and primarily the high intensities carried along the structure, a plethora of light-vapour interactions can be studied. Moreover, such platform may exhibit new functionalities such as low-power nonlinear light-matter interactions. One immense challenge is to study the effects of quantum coherence and shifts in nanoscale waveguides, characterized by ultra-small mode areas and fast dynamics. Here, we construct a highly compact 17 mm long serpentine silicon-nitride atomic vapour cladding waveguide. Fascinating and important phenomena such as van-der-Waals shifts, dynamical stark shifts and coherent effects such as strong coupling (in the form of Autler-Townes splitting) are observed. Some of these effects may play an important role in applications such as all-optical switching, frequency referencing and magnetometry.