Experimental Quantum Simulation of Dynamic Localization on Curved Photonic Lattices

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates experimental quantum simulation of dynamic localization in curved photonic lattices, analyzing transport properties and potential applications in quantum information processing using both 1D and 2D arrays.

Contribution

It provides the first experimental measurement of variances in dynamic localization on curved photonic lattices and introduces a quantum walk approach for anisotropic coupling analysis.

Findings

Successfully observed suppressed single-photon evolution patterns.

Measured variances match analytical and quantum walk models.

Achieved nearly complete localization acting as a photonic memory.

Abstract

Dynamic localization, which originates from the phenomena of particle evolution suppression under an externally applied AC electric field, has been simulated by suppressed light evolution in periodically-curved photonic arrays. However, experimental studies on their quantitative dynamic transport properties and application for quantum information processing are rare. Here we fabricate one-dimensional and hexagonal two-dimensional arrays, both with sinusoidal curvature. We successfully observe the suppressed single-photon evolution patterns, and for the first time measure the variances to study their transport properties. For one-dimensional arrays, the measured variances match both the analytical electric field calculation and the quantum walk Hamiltonian engineering approach. For hexagonal arrays, as anisotropic effective couplings in four directions are mutually dependent, the analytical approach suffers, while quantum walk conveniently incorporates all anisotropic coupling coefficients in the Hamiltonian and solves its exponential as a whole, yielding consistent variances with our experimental results. Furthermore, we implement a nearly complete localization to show that it can preserve both the initial injection and the wave-packet after some evolution, acting as a memory of a flexible time scale in integrated photonics. We demonstrate a useful quantum simulation of dynamic localization for studying their anisotropic transport properties, and a promising application of dynamic localization as a building block for quantum information processing in integrated photonics.