OP: Quantum Light Matter Interaction with van der Waals Exciton-Polaritons

非技术描述：量子信息科学与技术可以彻底改变现代社会：通过实现极快的计算和超安全的通信，解锁新材料，如高温超导体，可以改变日常交通，或创造改变农业的新化学过程。光是构建量子技术的有利选择，因为它易于控制和检测单个光包，也称为光子。不幸的是，光子不容易相互作用，这对控制一个光子流和另一个光子流构成了严重的瓶颈。控制信号的能力是任何计算技术的核心。因此，目前使用光构建量子计算机的尝试仅限于简单的操作。开发更复杂的光子之间的相互作用可以大大提高计算机的能力。这个项目旨在精确地证明由电子介导的光子之间的相互作用。这项关键技术有两个组成部分：一个将光长时间储存在小体积内的装置，以及一种人造的类似原子的介质，也被称为激子。这种介质已经成为许多日常技术的核心，包括太阳能电池和发光二极管。将这种类似原子的介质与光存储设备集成在一起，会导致光子之间的强相互作用。在纳米尺度上，这种效应可以发生在单光子水平上，这是量子计算所需要的。此外，光存储设备的尺寸大大减小，可以在一个平方毫米的芯片上制造数百个这样的设备，从而实现光的集成电路，类似于当今电子产品的核心集成电路。这个项目将开发一个平台，帮助科学家更好地理解高温超导等效应。此外，该项目将改善本科生和高中生在量子技术科学研究中的培训和教育，重点是包括妇女和少数民族社区。通过PI与美国光学学会和工业实验室的积极参与，科学成果将通过研讨会、讲习班、同行评审出版物和会议传播给更广泛的科学受众。技术描述：该研究旨在开发一个量子光学平台，以在最基本的层面上理解和设计光与物质的相互作用，其中单个光子通过称为激子的单量子材料开始相互作用。这个平台是由被称为激子-极化子的强耦合杂化粒子组成的，激子-极化子是部分物质和部分光，因此继承了两者的优点。光子提供了耦合空间分离节点的能力，而激子提供了极化子相互作用的能力。创建这种强相互作用激子-极化子系统的关键是原子薄范德华材料的合并，例如具有极大激子结合能的过渡金属二硫族化合物，以及超小模式体积的纳米光子谐振器和谐振器阵列。结合光学和电学技术以及量子光学建模，该项目探索范德瓦尔斯材料中的相干光物质相互作用，以深入了解原子薄激子-极化子和极化子凝聚物的本质。控制极化子的能力为合成复杂的量子哈密顿量提供了一个极好的机会，这是用经典计算机无法解决的。由此产生的强相关二维极化子可能对利用自旋谷物理或产生新物理（如激子介导的超导性）的量子纳米光子技术的新能力至关重要。结合数值模拟、器件制造和光学表征，实现了三个研究目标：(1)建立一个鲁棒的激子-极化激子平台；(2)实现单光子非线性光学量子多体模拟；(3)利用激子-极化子探索量子材料的新态。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Non-technical description: Quantum Information Science and Technologies can revolutionize modern society: by enabling extremely fast computing and ultra-secure communication, to unlocking new materials, such as high-temperature superconductors, that can transform day-to-day transportation, or create new chemical processes transforming agriculture. Light is an advantageous choice for building quantum technology, as it is easy to control and detect single packets of light, also known as photons. Unfortunately, photons do not easily interact with each other, which poses a serious bottleneck for controlling one stream of photons with another. The ability to control a signal is at the heart of any computing technology. Hence, current attempts to build quantum computer using light is limited to only simple operation. Developing more complex interaction between photons can dramatically enhance the computer’s capability. This project aims to demonstrate precisely such interactions between photons mediated by electrons. The key technology has two components: a device to store light in a small volume for a long time, and an artificial atom-like medium, also known as an exciton. Such medium is already at the heart of many day-to-day technologies, including solar cells, and light emitting diodes. Integrating such atom-like medium with light-storing devices leads to strong interaction between photons. On the nanometer scale, this effect can happen at the single photon level, which is needed for quantum computing. Moreover, the large size reduction of the light-storing devices allows hundreds of them to be made on a single square-millimeter chip, allowing integrated circuits for light, akin to integrated circuits that are at the heart of today’s electronics. This project will develop a platform to help scientists better understand effects like high-temperature superconductivity. Furthermore, this project will improve the training and education of undergraduate and high school students, with a strong emphasis on including women and minority communities, in scientific research in quantum technologies. Through the PI’s active involvement with the Optical Society of America and industrial laboratories, the scientific results will be disseminated to a wider scientific audience via seminars, workshops, peer-reviewed publications, and conferences. Technical description: The research aims to develop a quantum optical platform to understand and engineer light matter interaction at the most fundamental level, where single photons start interacting with each other via single quanta of materials known as excitons. This platform is made of strongly coupled hybrid particles called exciton-polaritons, which are part-matter and part-light, and thus inherit the best of both worlds. While photons provide the ability to couple spatially separated nodes, the excitons provide the ability for the polaritons to interact with each other. The key to creating this strongly interacting exciton-polariton system is the merging of atomically thin van der Waals materials, such as transition metal dichalcogenides with an extremely large exciton binding energy, and ultra-small mode-volume nanophotonic resonators and resonator arrays. Combining optical and electrical techniques as well as quantum optical modelling, the project probes coherent light matter interaction in van der Waals materials to provide deep insights into the nature of atomically thin exciton-polaritons, and polariton condensates. The ability to control polaritons provides an excellent opportunity to synthesize complex quantum Hamiltonians, which are impossible to solve using classical computers. The resulting strongly correlated two-dimensional polariton may prove critical for new capabilities in quantum nanophotonic technologies that exploit the spin-valley physics or generate new physics, such as exciton-mediated superconductivity. Combining numerical simulation, device fabrication, and optical characterization, three research aims are pursued: (1) develop a robust exciton-polariton platform; (2) realize single photon nonlinear optics for quantum many-body simulations; and (3) explore new states of quantum materials using exciton-polaritons.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.