Polarized and Un-Polarized Emission from a Single Emitter in a Bullseye Resonator

TL;DR

This study demonstrates how the polarization of emission from a single emitter in a cylindrically symmetric resonator can be controlled by emitter positioning, revealing the role of symmetry breaking and mode coupling.

Contribution

It shows that emitter position offset causes polarization control in a symmetric resonator, supported by experiments and simulations, applicable to various nanophotonic structures.

Findings

Polarized emission with |S|=0.99 observed

Unpolarized emission with |S|=0.03 observed

Polarization controlled by emitter position offset

Abstract

We present polarized |S|=0.99$\pm$0.01, and unpolarized |S|=0.03$\pm$0.01 emission from a single emitter embedded in a single, cylindrically symmetric device design. We show that the polarization stems from a position offset of the single emitter with respect to the cavity center, which breaks the cylindrical symmetry, and a position-dependent coupling to the frequency degenerate eigenmodes of the resonator structure. The experimental results are interpreted by using numerical simulations and by experimental mapping of the polarization-resolved far-field emission patterns. Our findings can be generalized to any nanophotonic structure where two orthogonal eigenmodes are not fully spatially overlapping.