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Marc M. Dignam

Publications and source records attributed to Marc M. Dignam.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

Multimode Entangled Squeezed Light Generation and Propagation in a Coupled-Cavity Photonic Crystal

Entangled multi-mode squeezed states of light have a wide variety of applications in quantum information systems, particularly in the generation of non-Gaussian states of light, which are central to continuous-variable quantum computing. Although theoretical approaches exist to model the nonlinear generation of one- and two-mode entangled states of light in ring resonator systems, these approaches are difficult to implement in modeling more complicated many-cavity systems. In this work, we present an efficient and accurate theoretical approach to modeling the generation and propagation of quantum states of light in lossy coupled-cavity systems containing a two- or three-mode nonlinear resonant structure. Our approach is general and computationally viable even in systems with hundreds of modes. We apply our method to the design and modeling of a multimode photonic crystal coupled-cavity system for the generation of entangled squeezed states of light on-chip. The system consists of a three-mode resonant structure coupled to three coupled-resonator optical waveguides (CROWs) in a square lattice silicon photonic crystal slab. The computational speed of the method allows us to efficiently optimize the system such that the signal and idler light in the two output CROWs remains entangled even after propagating tens of cavities down the CROWs.

quant-ph

Optimization of optomechanical cooling and entanglement using semi-analytic solutions to the Lindblad master equation

We solve the Lindblad master equation for the quantum state of a pumped optomechanical system coupled to a thermal bath. We show that when the microwave pump field frequency is on the red sideband of the cavity resonance, the exact form of the state is a beam-split thermal state, and when it is on the blue sideband, it is a two-mode squeezed thermal state. These solutions allow us to determine the mechanical cooling and the entanglement between the microwave and mechanical modes. We find that we can entangle the modes in a thermal environment by activating the two fields sequentially. In this scheme, after cooling the mechanical mode via the red sideband pump, we determine the optimal blue sideband pump field to achieve the maximum entanglement time and the maximum time below a desired correlation variance threshold as a function of the loss rates and equilibrium temperatures of the two modes.

quant-ph

Analytic solution to the nonlinear generation of squeezed states in a thermal bath

We model squeezed state generation in a lossy optical cavity in the presence of a thermal bath using the Lindblad master equation. We show that the exact solution is a squeezed thermal state, where thermal photons arise both from loss and from the thermal bath. We derive an exact, closed-form solution for the evolution of the quadrature uncertainty arising from pulsed degenerate spontaneous parametric down conversion in the cavity. We apply this solution under different pump conditions and show in detail how the thermal environment reduces quadrature squeezing as well as the second order coherence function.

quant-ph

Nonlinear optical generation of entangled squeezed states in lossy nonorthogonal quasimodes: an analytic solution

We prove that the density operator for the nonlinearly-generated quantum state of light in the $M$ lossy nonorthogonal quasimodes of a nanocavity system has the analytic form of a multimode squeezed thermal state, where the time-dependence of the squeezing and thermal photon parameters are given by a set of $3M$ coupled differential equations. We apply our approach to a system with two highly nonorthogonal quasimodes and obtain good agreement with simulations using a basis of Fock states. Our approach provides an efficient way to model and optimize the generation of mixed Gaussian cluster states.

quant-ph

A simple way to incorporate loss when modelling multimode entangled state generation

We show that the light generated via spontaneous four-wave mixing or parametric down conversion in multiple, coupled, lossy cavities is a multimode squeezed thermal state. Requiring this state to be the solution of the Lindblad master equation results in a set of coupled first-order differential equations for the time-dependent squeezing parameters and thermal photon numbers of the state. The benefit of this semi-analytic approach is that the number of coupled equations scales linearly with the number of modes but is independent of the number of photons generated. With this analytic form of the state, correlation variances are easily expressed as analytic functions of the time-dependent mode parameters. Thus, our solution makes it computationally tractable and relatively straight forward to calculate the generation and evolution of multimode entangled states in multiple coupled, lossy cavities, even when there are a large number of modes and/or photons.

quant-ph

The effects of microscopic scattering on terahertz third harmonic generation in monolayer graphene

Due to its linear dispersion, monolayer graphene is expected to generate a third harmonic response at terahertz frequencies. There have been a variety of different models of this effect and recently it has been experimentally observed. However, there is still considerable uncertainty as to the role of scattering on harmonic generation in graphene. In this work, we model third-harmonic generation in doped monolayer graphene at THz frequencies by employing a nearest-neighbour tight-binding model in the length gauge. We include optical phonon and neutral impurity scattering at the microscopic level, and examine the effects of scattering on the third harmonic response. We also compare the results of a phenomenological semiclassical theory, using a field-dependent scattering time extracted from the simulation, and find a significantly lower third harmonic field than that found from the microscopic model. This demonstrates that third-harmonic generation is much more sensitive to the nature of the scattering than is the linear response. We also compare the results of our full simulation to recent experimental results and find qualitative agreement.

cond-mat.mes-hall

Pump-induced terahertz anisotropy in bilayer graphene

We investigate the intraband nonlinear dynamics in doped bilayer graphene in the presence of strong, linearly-polarized, in-plane terahertz fields. We perform degenerate pump-probe experiments with 3.4 THz fields on doped bilayer graphene at low temperature (12 K) and find that when the pump is co-polarized with the probe beam, the differential pump-probe signal is almost double that found in the cross-polarized case. We show that the origin of this pump-induced anisotropy is the difference in the average electron effective mass in the probe direction when carriers are displaced in k-space by the pump either parallel or perpendicular to the direction of the probe polarization. We model the system using both a simple semiclassical model and a Boltzmann equation simulation of the electron dynamics with phenomenological scattering and find good qualitative agreement with experimental results.

cond-mat.mes-hall

The impact of nitrogen doping on the linear and nonlinear terahertz response of graphene

It is well known that impurities play a central role in the linear and nonlinear response of graphene at optical and terahertz frequencies. In this work, we calculate the bands and intraband dipole connection elements for nitrogen-doped monolayer graphene using a density functional tight binding approach. Employing these results, we calculate the linear and nonlinear response of the doped graphene to terahertz pulses using a density-matrix approach in the length gauge. We present the results for the linear and nonlinear mobility as well as third harmonic generation in graphene for adsorbed and substitutional nitrogen doping for a variety of doping densities. We show that the conduction bands are more parabolic in graphene structures with substitutional nitrogen doping than for those with adsorbed nitrogen. As a result, substitutional doping has a greater impact on the terahertz mobility and nonlinear response of graphene than adsorbed nitrogen does.

cond-mat.mes-hall

Valley-polarization in biased bilayer graphene using circularly polarized light

Achieving a population imbalance between the two inequivalent valleys is a critical first step for any valleytronic device. A valley-polarization can be induced in biased bilayer graphene using circularly polarized light. In this paper, we present a detailed theoretical study of valley-polarization in biased bilayer graphene. We show that a nearly perfect valley-polarization can be achieved with the proper choices of external bias and pulse frequency. We find that the optimal pulse frequency $ω$ is given by $\hbarω=2a,$ where $2a$ is the potential energy difference between the graphene layers. We also find that the valley-polarization originates not from the Dirac points themselves, but rather from a ring of states surrounding each. Intervalley scattering is found to greatly reduce the valley-polarization for high frequency pulses. Thermal populations are found to significantly reduce the valley-polarization for small biases. This work provides insight into the origin of valley-polarization in bilayer graphene and will aid experimentalists seeking to study valley-polarization in the lab.

cond-mat.mes-hall

Continuous-variable entanglement in a two-mode lossy cavity: an exact solution

Continuous-variable (CV) entanglement is a valuable resource in the field of quantum information. One source of CV entanglement is the correlations between the position and momentum of photons in a two-mode squeezed state of light. In this paper, we theoretically study the generation of squeezed states, via spontaneous parametric downconversion (SPDC), inside a two-mode lossy cavity that is pumped with a classical optical pulse. The dynamics of the density operator in the cavity is modelled using the Lindblad master equation, and we show that the exact solution to this model is the density operator for a two-mode squeezed thermal state, with a time-dependent squeezing amplitude and average thermal photon number for each mode. We derive an expression for the maximum entanglement inside the cavity that depends crucially on the difference in the losses between the two modes. We apply our exact solution to the important example of a microring resonator that is pumped with a Gaussian pulse. The expressions that we derive will help researchers optimize CV entanglement in lossy cavities.

quant-ph

A general approach to model counterpropagating continuous variable entangled states in a lossy CROW

We present a general approach to model an integrated source of counterpropagating continuous-variable entangled states based on a coupled-resonator optical waveguide that is pumped by a classical pulsed source incident from above the waveguide. This paper is an extension of our previous work~(Ref. \cite{PhysRevA.100.033839}), where we analytically investigated the generation and propagation of continues-variable entangled states in this coupled-cavity system in the presence of intrinsic loss. However, in this work, we employ a numerical method to implement the Schmidt decomposition method rather than pursuing analytical methods. We show that not only this gives us a much higher degree of freedom in choosing the pumping parameters which were not possible to investigate analytically, but also it enables us to go beyond some of the approximations we had made to derive analytical expressions before.

quant-ph

Optimization of a Lossy Microring Resonator System for the Generation of Quadrature-Squeezed States

The intensity buildup of light inside a lossy microring resonator can be used to enhance the generation of squeezed states via spontaneous parametric downconversion (SPDC). In this work, we model the generation of squeezed light in a microring resonator that is pumped with a Gaussian pulse via a side-coupled channel waveguide. We theoretically determine the optimum pump pulse duration and ring-to-channel coupling constant to minimize the quadrature noise (maximize the squeezing) in the ring for a fixed input pump energy. We derive approximate analytic expressions for the optimal coupling and pump pulse duration as a function of scattering loss in the ring. These results will enable researchers to easily determine the optimal design of microring resonator systems for the generation of quadrature-squeezed states.

physics.optics

Counterpropagating continuous variable entangled states in lossy coupled-cavity optical waveguides

We present an integrated source of counterpropagating entangled states based on a coupled resonator optical waveguide that is pumped by a classical pulsed source incident from above the waveguide. We investigate theoretically the generation and propagation of continuous variable entangled states in this coupled-cavity system in the presence of intrinsic loss. Using a tight-binding approximation, we derive analytic time-dependent expressions for the number of photons in each cavity, as well as for the correlation variance between the photons in different pairs of cavities, to evaluate the degree of quantum entanglement. We also derive simple approximate expressions for these quantities that can be used to guide the design of such systems, and discuss how pumping configurations and physical properties of the system affect the photon statistics and the degree of quantum correlation.

physics.optics

Optimized nonlinear terahertz response of graphene in a parallel-plate waveguide

Third harmonic generation of terahertz radiation is expected to occur in monolayer graphene due to the nonlinear relationship between the crystal momentum and the current density. In this work, we calculate the terahertz nonlinear response of graphene inside a parallel-plate waveguide including pump depletion, self-phase, and cross-phase modulation. To overcome the phase mismatching between the pump field and third-harmonic field at high input fields due to self-phase and cross-phase modulation, we design a waveguide with two dielectric layers with different indices of refraction. We find that, by tuning the relative thicknesses of the two layers, we are able to improve phase matching, and thereby increase the power efficiency of the system by more than a factor of two at high powers. With this approach, we find that dispite the loss in this system, for an incident frequency of $2$ THz, we are able to achieve power efficiencies of $75 \%$ for graphene with low Fermi energies of $20$ meV and up to $35\%$ when the Fermi energy is $100$ meV.

physics.app-ph

Third Harmonic THz Generation from Graphene in a Parallel-Plate Waveguide

Graphene as a zero-bandgap two-dimensional semiconductor with a linear electron band dispersion near the Dirac points has the potential to exhibit very interesting nonlinear optical properties. In particular, third harmonic generation of terahertz radiation should occur due to the nonlinear relationship between the crystal momentum and the current density. In this work, we investigate the terahertz nonlinear response of graphene inside a parallel-plate waveguide. We optimize the plate separation and Fermi energy of the graphene to maximize third harmonic generation, by maximizing the nonlinear interaction while minimizing the loss and phase mismatch. The results obtained show an increase by more than a factor of 100 in the power efficiency relative to a normal-incidence configuration for a 2 terahertz incident field.

physics.app-ph

Nonlinear response of biased bilayer graphene at terahertz frequencies

A density-matrix formalism within the length gauge is developed to calculate the nonlinear response of both doped and undoped biased bilayer graphene (BBLG) at terahertz frequencies. Employing a tight-binding model, we derive an effective two-band Hamiltonian with which we calculate the conduction and valence band dispersion, as well as their respective Bloch states. We then solve for the dynamic equations of the density matrix elements, allowing for the calculation of the intraband and interband current densities and the transmitted and reflected terahertz fields. We find that for undoped BBLG with a gap size of 4 meV, the reflected field exhibits a third harmonic amplitude that is 45% of the fundamental in the reflected field (0.07% of the incident field fundamental) for an incident 1 THz single-cycle pulse with a field amplitude of 2.0 kV/cm. We find for doped BBLG, although the dispersion becomes highly nonparabolic as a bias is applied, the third harmonic is a maximum of 8% of the fundamental in the reflected field (0.56% of the incident field fundamental) when there is no bias and diminishes with an increase in bias.

cond-mat.mes-hall

Nonlinear Response of Bilayer Graphene at Terahertz Frequencies

A density-matrix formalism within the length gauge is developed for the purpose of calculating the nonlinear response of intrinsic bilayer graphene at terahertz frequencies. Employing a tight-binding model, we find that interplay between the interband and intraband dynamics leads to strong harmonic generation at moderate field amplitudes. Specifically, we find that at low temperature (10 K), the reflected field of undoped suspended bilayer graphene exhibits a third harmonic amplitude that is 30% of the fundamental in the reflected field for an incident 1 THz single-cycle pulse with a field amplitude of 1.5 kV/cm. More interestingly, we find that as the central frequency of the incident radiation is increased, the third harmonic amplitude also increases; reaching a maximum of 53% for an incident frequency of 2 THz and amplitude of 2.5 kV/cm.

cond-mat.mes-hall

High field response of gated graphene at THz frequencies

We study the Fermi energy level dependence of nonlinear terahertz (THz) transmission of gated multi-layer and single-layer graphene transferred onto sapphire and quartz substrates. The two samples represent two limits of low-field impurity scattering: short-range neutral and long-range charged impurity scattering, respectively. We observe an increase in the transmission as the field amplitude is increased due to intraband absorption bleaching starting at fields above 8 kV/cm. This effect arises from a field-induced reduction in THz conductivity that depends strongly on the Fermi energy. We account for intraband absorption using a free carrier Drude model that includes neutral and charged impurity scattering as well as optical phonon scattering. We find that although the Fermi-level dependence in the monolayer and five-layer samples is quite different, both exhibit a strong dependence on the field amplitude that cannot be explained on the basis of an increase in the lattice temperature alone. Our results provide a deeper understanding of transport in graphene devices operating at THz frequencies and in modest kV/cm field strengths where nonlinearities exist.

cond-mat.mes-hall