Nanoscale sculpturing of single photons with dielectrics

目前的室温光子源要么相对于退相干太慢（ns），要么对于量子芯片上的集成来说太笨重（mm）。在这里，我们提出了一种范式转变，以克服这些限制，并开发新的量子光源，通过利用纳米电介质架构中的雕刻电磁模式，将光-物质相互作用提高许多数量级，而没有等离子体的吸收，淬火和加热缺点。我们的团队包括纳米光子学，等离子体，单分子光谱学和阴极发光光谱学的光子局域态密度映射的专业知识，并且独特地定位于解决超出金属纳米系统限制的介电纳米光子学。我们的纳米结构中的光设计方法是基于对介电纳米颗粒中的Mie共振的操纵。纳米电介质可以纳米定位电磁场而没有光学损失，通过利用共定位的电和磁模式以及它们的干涉来控制光荧光，并以前所未有的效率为非线性转换提供额外的自由度。我们的目标是通过纳米介质天线和腔体开发明亮的单光子和双光子纳米量子源。我们将在共振调谐，近场的空间雕刻和光子态密度方面对纳米晶体的工作原理有基本的了解，我们的最终目标是在室温下获得单个光子和关联光子的明亮光源，适合于集成在芯片上的量子电路上的波长尺寸。我们设想，纳米光子学可以导致实用的纳米尺度量子光学，其中等离子体主要由于光吸收而未能实现，并达到纳米级光子对产生的里程碑，这将彻底改变量子光学，为量子系统的纳米级工程开辟真实的道路。

Current room-temperature photon sources are either too slow (ns) with respect to decoherence or too bulky (mm) for integration on quantum chips. Here, we propose a paradigm shift to overcome these limitations and develop new quantum light sources by exploiting sculptured electromagnetic modes in nano-dielectric architectures to boost light-matter interactions by many orders of magnitude, without the absorption, quenching and heating drawbacks of plasmonics. Our team encompasses expertise in nano-photonics, plasmonics, single molecule spectroscopy, and photonic local density of state mapping by cathodoluminescence spectroscopy, and is uniquely placed to address dielectric nanophotonics beyond the limitations of metallic nano-systems. Our approach to light design in nanoscale structures is based on the manipulation of Mie resonances in dielectric nanoparticles. Nanodielectrics can nano-localise electromagnetic fields with no optical losses, control light fluorescence by exploiting co-localised electric and magnetic modes as well as their interference, and offer additional degrees of freedom for nonlinear conversion with unprecedented efficiency. We aim to develop bright nanoscale quantum sources of single and pair photons through nanoscale dielectric antennas and cavities. We will develop the fundamental understanding of the working principles of nano dielectrics in terms of resonance tuning, spatial sculpturing of near fields, and the photonic density of states, and then we will utilise them for enhancement of single emitter fluorescence and nonlinear photon (pair) conversion.Our ultimate goal is to obtain a bright source of individual and correlated photons at room temperature with sub-wavelength size suitable for integration on quantum circuits on chips. We envisage that nano-dielectrics can lead to practical nano-scale quantum optics, where plasmonics has failed to deliver mainly due to optical absorption, and reach the milestone of nanoscale photon pair generation which would revolutionise quantum optics, opening a real path to nanoscale engineering of quantum systems.