Multiple channelling single-photon emission with scattering holography designed metasurfaces

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 14; no. 1; p. 6253
• Main Authors: Komisar, Danylo, Kumar, Shailesh, Kan, Yinhui, Meng, Chao, Kulikova, Liudmila F., Davydov, Valery A., Agafonov, Viatcheslav N., Bozhevolnyi, Sergey I.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 06-10-2023; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 639/624/400/1021; 639/624/400/3925; 639/925/927/1021; Acoustics; Channeling; Design; Diamonds; Efficiency; Emissions; Emitters; Holography; Humanities and Social Sciences; Mechanics; Metasurfaces; multidisciplinary; Nanostructure; Photon beams; Photon emission; Photons; Physics; Polaritons; Polarization; Polarization characteristics; Propagation; Scattering; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Wave propagation
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-42046-3

Channelling single-photon emission in multiple well-defined directions and simultaneously controlling its polarization characteristics is highly desirable for numerous quantum technology applications. We show that this can be achieved by using quantum emitters (QEs) nonradiatively coupled to surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs), which are scattered into outgoing free-propagating waves by appropriately designed metasurfaces. The QE-coupled metasurface design is based on the scattering holography approach with radially diverging SPPs as reference waves. Using holographic metasurfaces fabricated around nanodiamonds with single Ge vacancy centres, we experimentally demonstrate on-chip integrated efficient generation of two well-collimated single-photon beams propagating along different 15° off-normal directions with orthogonal linear polarizations.
Here the authors demonstrate on-chip single-photon source providing two emission channels with individual direction and polarization control of each channel by implementing a plasmonic holographic metasurface coupled to a Ge-vacancy nanodiamond.