Joint Workshop LANL/NIMS Quantum and Functional Materials and MANA International Symposium 2024


Session 5-1

Title

Space-Time Quantum Metasurfaces

Author's photo

Authors

Diego Dalvit

Affiliations

Theoretical Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory

URL


Email

dalvit@lanl.gov

Abstract

Metasurfaces have recently entered the realm of quantum photonics, enabling manipulation of quantum light using a compact nanophotonic platform. Realizing the full potential of metasurfaces at the deepest quantum level requires the ability to tune coherent light-matter interactions continuously in space and time. Here, we introduce the concept of space-time quantum metasurfaces for arbitrary control of the spectral, spatial, and spin properties of nonclassical light using a compact photonic platform. We show that space-time quantum metasurfaces allow on-demand tailoring of entanglement among all degrees of freedom of a single photon. We also show that spatiotemporal modulation induces asymmetry at the fundamental level of quantum fluctuations, resulting in the generation of steered and vortex photon pairs out of vacuum. Space-time quantum metasurfaces have the potential to enable novel photonic functionalities, such as encoding quantum information into high-dimensional color qudits using designer modulation protocols, sculpting multispectral and multispatial modes in spontaneous emission, and generating reconfigurable hyperentanglement for high-capacity quantum communications.

Fig. 1. Generation and control of hyper-entanglement using spatiotemporally modulated metasurfaces
Fig. 2. Generation twisted dynamical Casimir photons out of the quantum vacuum using a graphene-modulated metasurface.

Reference

  1. Wilton J.M. Kort-Kamp, Abul Azad, and Diego A.R. Dalvit, Phys. Rev. Lett. 127, 043603 (2021).
    DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.127.043603; This paper is an Editor’s Suggestions and was featured in Physics.