CREST-PRF: Exploring the dynamics of strongly coupled spin-photon systems

在科学与技术卓越研究中心（CREST）博士后研究奖学金（PRF）的支持下，该项目旨在通过将工程金刚石膜与光子腔连接来探索金刚石中着名色心的强光物质相互作用。这些相互作用为色心的整体光电性质带来了进一步的可调谐性，形成了一种杂化半光半物质系统，在神经网络和增强的纳米级传感领域具有潜在的应用。社区内目前的努力已经指向固体中单个色心的强耦合，这在根本上是具有挑战性的。相反，这个项目的目标是达到与密集色心合奏的强光物质耦合，以探索这些混合态的集体现象和涌现特性。这种集体行为有望增强纳米级传感，并为下一代计算提供平台。该项目的具体目标是实现钻石中氮空位和硅双空位色心的所谓“强耦合制度”。在这种情况下，光/物质成分不再是独立的，并且共同描述了什么是缺陷-激发-腔-光子混合态。为了实现这一目标，重要的是评估金刚石样品的物理要求，如厚度和缺陷密度，以及最佳的光子腔设计。为了阐明这些细节的先验，分析和数值方法将被用来“逆向设计”的混合金刚石腔系统。这种设计可以基于光-物质耦合强度，这种强度可以在实验中通过傅立叶空间成像和时间分辨光谱方法可靠地测量。这些方法将有助于理解强耦合色心的光物理动力学，以及通过光子相互作用评估其潜在的可调谐性和集成。CREST PRF奖项为活跃的CREST中心的早期职业科学家提供研究经验和培训。该奖项反映了NSF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。

With support from the Centers of Research Excellence in Science and Technology (CREST) Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (PRF), this project aims at exploring strong light-matter interactions on well-known color centers in diamond by interfacing engineered diamond membranes with photonic cavities. These interactions bring further tunability to the overall optoelectronic properties of color centers, forming a hybridized half-light half-matter system with potential applications in the areas of neural networks and enhanced nanoscale sensing. The current efforts within the community have been directed towards strong coupling of individual color centers in solids, which is challenging in fundamental ways. Instead, this project aims at reaching strong light-matter coupling with dense color center ensembles to explore collective phenomena and emergent properties of these hybrid states. Such collective behavior is expected to enhance nanoscale sensing and provide a platform for next generation computation. The specific aims of the project are oriented towards reaching the so-called ‘strong-coupling regime’ with nitrogen-vacancy and silicon-divacancy color centers in diamond. In this regime, the light/matter components are not independent anymore, and collectively describe what would be a defect-excitation-cavity-photon hybrid state. In realizing such goal, it is important to assess the physical requirements for the diamond samples such as thickness and defect densities, as well as optimal photonic-cavity designs. To elucidate these details a priori, analytical, and numerical methods will be used to ‘inverse-design’ the hybrid diamond-cavity systems. Such designs could be based on light-matter coupling strengths that can be reliably measured in experiments, by Fourier-space imaging, and time-resolved spectroscopy methods. These approaches will help understand the photophysical dynamics of strongly coupled color centers, as well as assessing their potential tunability and integration via photonic interactions. The CREST PRF awards provide research experience and training for early career scientists at active CREST Centers.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.