arXiv subjects

Dukhyung Lee

Publications and source records attributed to Dukhyung Lee.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Mechanical Activation of Terahertz Tunneling in Metallic Nanogaps

Metallic nanogaps concentrate terahertz (THz) fields into deep subwavelength volumes and support field-driven electron tunneling when the insulating barrier becomes sufficiently narrow. Here, we demonstrate mechanical control of tunneling-mediated nonlinear THz transmission in a flexible nanogap metasurface. The metasurface consists of Au/PMMA/Au nanogaps fabricated on a polyethylene terephthalate substrate, enabling continuous tuning of the gap geometry through macroscopic bending. In the flat state, the resonant transmission exhibits only a weak dependence on the incident THz field strength. Upon bending, increasing the incident field strength induces pronounced resonance suppression accompanied by saturation of the voltage developed across the nanogaps. This nonlinear response is consistent with the opening of a field-dependent tunneling conduction channel through the mechanically narrowed PMMA barriers. Simmons-model calculations illustrate the strong increase in tunneling current density and the associated dissipative gap response as the local gap width approaches the few-nanometer regime. These results establish mechanical deformation as a macroscopic means of controlling tunneling-mediated THz nonlinearities in flexible metasurfaces.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2026

Nonlinear Diamagnetic Interactions in Ultrastrongly Coupled 2D Electrons

The quantum Hopfield model is widely used to describe ultrastrong light--matter coupling between cavity photons and collective bosonic excitations in solids, where the diamagnetic interaction is conventionally assumed to be a constant. We experimentally demonstrate that the diamagnetic response of Landau polaritons is reduced under strong terahertz field excitation. We show that this behavior originates from field-driven redistribution of electrons into the nonparabolic regime of the conduction band of GaAs, which reduces the plasma frequency and consequently the diamagnetic interaction strength. A microscopic hot-electron model reproduces the observed nonlinear response. Motivated by this microscopic picture, we propose a nonlinear extension of the Hopfield model with a Kerr-like interaction. Our results establish a route toward nonlinear cavity quantum electrodynamics and driven ultrastrong light--matter coupling beyond the conventional linear Hopfield description, which is capable of creating uniquely quantum optical effects such as squeezed light generation.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2026

Chirality routing non-polaritonic vacuum correlations in Landau polaritons

Ultrastrong coupling between matter and cavity vacuum fields can turn the electromagnetic vacuum into a structured quantum environment, thereby opening passive routes for modifying and manipulating material properties. Recent work has identified light--matter entanglement as an important ingredient in these property changes, which raises the question of where the relevant vacuum correlations actually reside. Landau polaritons provide chiral ultrastrong coupling systems in which one circular cavity polarization forms the bright polariton branches. Here, using a quantum information approach, we show that an exact chiral charge in a multimode Hopfield model routes the dominant anomalous correlations, squeezing, and cavity--matter entanglement into the opposite polarization. We find that, using parameters extracted from a multimode Landau polariton system, this hidden sector correlates the cyclotron resonance with finite momentum magnetoplasmons through Gaussian discord, while pairwise matter--matter entanglement remains absent. We further predict a polarization anisotropy of dressed vacuum electric field fluctuations as a signature of this chiral routing. These results identify chirality as a symmetry principle for organizing ultrastrong coupling vacua and show that quantum information tools provide a powerful framework for revealing the salient properties of Landau polaritons.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2025

Cavity-Mediated Coupling between Local and Nonlocal Modes in Landau Polaritons

The multimode ultrastrong coupling (USC) regime has emerged as a novel platform for accessing previously inaccessible phenomena in cavity quantum electrodynamics. Of particular interest are cavity-mediated correlations between local and nonlocal excitations, or equivalently, between modes at zero and finite in-plane momentum modes, which offer new opportunities for controlling light-matter interactions across space. However, direct experimental evidence of such interactions has remained elusive. Here, we demonstrate nonlocal multimode coupling in a Landau polariton system, where cavity photons simultaneously interact with the zero-momentum cyclotron resonance and finite-momentum magnetoplasmons of a two-dimensional electron gas in a GaAs quantum well. Our slot cavities, with their subwavelength mode volumes, supply in-plane momentum components that enable the excitation of finite-momentum matter modes. Terahertz time-domain magnetospectroscopy measurements reveal a clear splitting of the upper-polariton branch, arising from hybridization between magnetoplasmon modes and the cavity--cyclotron-resonance hybrids. Extracted coupling strengths confirm USC of the cyclotron resonance and strong coupling of the magnetoplasmon modes to the cavity field, respectively. The experimental results are well captured by the multimode Hopfield model and finite-element simulations. These findings establish a pathway for engineering multimode light-matter interactions involving zero- and finite-momentum matter modes in the USC regime.

quant-ph↗