Fast electrical modulation of strong near-field interactions between erbium emitters and graphene

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates fast electrical control of near-field interactions between erbium emitters and graphene, enabling dynamic modulation of quantum emitter properties at hundreds of kilohertz, which is promising for integrated quantum technologies.

Contribution

The authors achieve the first all-electrical, fast modulation of emitter-graphene interactions by tuning graphene's Fermi energy, surpassing previous thermal, mechanical, and optical methods.

Findings

Achieved >1,000-fold decay rate increase for 25% of emitters.

Demonstrated electrical modulation frequencies up to 300 kHz.

Enabled dynamic control of quantum emitter interactions with potential quantum applications.

Abstract

Combining the quantum optical properties of single-photon emitters with the strong near-field interactions available in nanophotonic and plasmonic systems is a powerful way of creating quantum manipulation and metrological functionalities. The ability to actively and dynamically modulate emitter-environment interactions is of particular interest in this regard. While thermal, mechanical and optical modulation have been demonstrated, electrical modulation has remained an outstanding challenge. Here we realize fast, all-electrical modulation of the near-field interactions between a nanolayer of erbium emitters and graphene, by in-situ tuning the Fermi energy of graphene. We demonstrate strong interactions with a >1,000-fold increased decay rate for 25% of the emitters, and electrically modulate these interactions with frequencies up to 300 kHz - orders of magnitude faster than the emitters radiative decay (100 Hz). This constitutes an enabling platform for integrated quantum technologies, opening routes to quantum entanglement generation by collective plasmon emission or photon emission with controlled waveform.