Enabling single-mode behavior over large areas with photonic Dirac cones

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new all-dielectric 3D photonic system with Dirac-like dispersion, enabling large-area, efficient light-matter interactions for advanced photonic devices.

Contribution

It presents a novel design for 3D photonic materials with Dirac dispersion that overcomes previous confinement limitations.

Findings

Achieved all-dielectric Dirac-like dispersion in 3D photonic systems.

Demonstrated potential for large-area high-efficiency photonic devices.

Enables ultralow-threshold lasers and quantum photonic applications.

Abstract

Many of graphene's unique electronic properties emerge from its Dirac-like electronic energy spectrum. Similarly, it is expected that a nanophotonic system featuring Dirac dispersion will open a path to a number of important research avenues. To date, however, all proposed realizations of a photonic analog of graphene lack fully omnidirectional out-of-plane light confinement, which has prevented creating truly realistic implementations of this class of systems. Here we report on a novel route to achieve all-dielectric three-dimensional photonic materials featuring Dirac-like dispersion in a quasi-two-dimensional system. We further discuss how this finding could enable a dramatic enhancement of the spontaneous emission coupling efficiency (the \beta-factor) over large areas, defying the common wisdom that the \beta-factor degrades rapidly as the size of the system increases. These results might enable general new classes of large-area ultralow-threshold lasers, single-photon sources, quantum information processing devices and energy harvesting systems.