Strong Coupling Between RF Photons and Plasmons of Electrons on Liquid Helium

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates strong, coherent coupling between plasmons of electrons on liquid helium and RF photons in a resonator, enabling quantum information applications and detailed studies of electron physics.

Contribution

It establishes a tunable plasmon-photon hybrid system with strong coupling and coherent energy exchange, advancing quantum electrodynamics research with electrons on helium.

Findings

Observation of strong plasmon-photon coupling

Detection of coherent oscillations between modes

Probing electron physics and phase transitions

Abstract

Plasmons, arising from the collective motion of electrons, can interact strongly with electromagnetic fields or photons; this capability has been exploited across a broad range of applications, from chemical reactivity to biosensing. Recently, there has been growing interest in plasmons for applications in quantum information processing. Electrons floating on liquid helium provide an exceptionally clean, disorder-free system and have emerged as a promising platform for this purpose. In this work, we establish this system as a tunable plasmon-photon hybrid platform. We demonstrate strong coupling between floating-electron plasmons and radio-frequency (RF) photons confined in an LC resonator. Time-resolved measurements reveal coherent oscillatory energy exchange between the plasmonic and photonic modes, providing direct evidence of their coherent coupling. These results represent a step towards cavity quantum electrodynamics with a floating-electron plasmon coupled to a resonator. Furthermore, the LC resonator serves as a sensitive probe of electron-on-helium physics, enabling the observation of the Wigner crystal transition and a quantitative study of the temperature-dependent plasmon decay arising from ripplon-induced scattering.