Completely subradiant multi-atom architectures through 2D photonic crystals

TL;DR

This paper explores 2D photonic crystal platforms to create highly subradiant multi-atom states, enabling controlled atomic emission and interference effects for quantum light applications.

Contribution

It demonstrates the design of perfect subradiant states and massively parallel atomic arrays in 2D photonic crystals, advancing quantum photonic architectures.

Findings

Perfect subradiant states are achievable with finite 2D lattices.

Directional emission depends on the dispersion relation's iso-frequency manifold.

The cross-talk coefficient effectively predicts multi-atom radiance properties.

Abstract

Inspired by recent advances in the manipulation of atoms trapped near 1D waveguides and pro- posals to use surface acoustic waves on piezoelectric substrates for the same purpose, we show the potential of two-dimensional platforms. We exploit the directional emission of atoms near photonic crystal slabs with square symmetry to build perfect subradiant states of 2 distant atoms, possible in 2D only for finite lattices with reflecting boundaries. We also show how to design massively parallel 1D arrays of atoms above a single crystal, useful for multi-port output of nonclassical light, by ex- ploiting destructive interference of guided resonance modes due to finite size effects. Directionality of the emission is shown to be present whenever a linear iso-frequency manifold is present in the dispersion relation of the crystal. Multi-atom radiance properties can be obtained from a simple cross-talk coefficient of a master equation, which we compare with exact atom-crystal dynamics, showing its predictive power.