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Parity-time (PT) symmetry and broken in micro/nano photonic structures have been investigated extensively as they bring new opportunities to control the flow of light based on non-Hermitian optics. Previous studies have focused on the situations of PT-symmetry broken in loss-loss or gain-loss coupling systems. Here, we theoretically predict the gain-gain and gain-lossless PT-broken from phase diagram, where the boundaries between PT-symmetry and PT-broken can be clearly defined in the full-parameter space including gain, lossless and loss. For specific micro/nano photonic structures, such as coupled waveguides, we give the transmission matrices of each phase space, which can be used for beam splitting. Taking coupled waveguides as an example, we obtain periodic energy exchange in PT-symmetry phase and exponential gain or loss in PT-broken phase, which are consistent with the phase diagram. The scenario giving a full view of PT-symmetry or broken, will not only deepen the understanding of fundamental physics, but also will promote the breakthrough of photonic applications like optical routers and beam splitters.

Nitrogen ions pumped by intense femtosecond laser pulses give rise to optical amplification in the ultraviolet range. Here, we demonstrated that a seed light pulse carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM) can be significantly amplified in nitrogen plasma excited by a Gaussian femtosecond laser pulse. With the topological charge of +1 and -1, we observed an energy amplification of the seed light pulse by two orders of magnitude, while the amplified pulse carries the same OAM as the incident seed pulse. Moreover, we show that a spatial misalignment of the plasma amplifier with the OAM seed beam leads to an amplified emission of Gaussian mode without OAM, due to the special spatial profile of the OAM seed pulse that presents a donut-shaped intensity distribution. Utilizing this misalignment, we can implement an optical switch that toggles the output signal between Gaussian mode and OAM mode. This work not only certifies the phase transfer from the seed light to the amplified signal, but also highlights the important role of spatial overlap of the donut-shaped seed beam with the gain region of the nitrogen plasma for the achievement of OAM beam amplification., Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures

Classically, PT symmetry or broken in photonic structures is well studied, where only average effect of gain and loss on each optical mode is considered. However, in quantum, the role of gain or loss in a non-hermitian system is totally different, the specific quantum optical effect induced by which has never been studied. Here, we analytically obtained the PT-symmetry and PT-broken regime bounded by two exceptional lines in a bi-photonic structure with both gain and loss simultaneously existing. For the consideration of reality, the steady state condition under the weak gain is identified. We defined the exchange operator to represent the photon exchange between two modes and further to characterize the transition from PT symmetry to broken. Also, in the PT broken bi-waveguide system, multi-photon state can be on-demand engineered through the quantum interference. Quantum PT-Phase diagram with steady state regime is the basis to study the quantum state fabrication, quantum interferences, and logic operations in non-hermitian quantum systems., Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures

The strong coupling between photons and matter excitations such as excitons, phonons, and magnons is of central importance in the study of light-matter interactions. Bridging the flying and stationary quantum states, the strong light-matter coupling enables the coherent transmission, storage, and processing of quantum information, which is essential for building photonic quantum networks. Over the past few decades, exciton-polaritons have attracted substantial research interest due to their half-light-half-matter bosonic nature. Coupling exciton-polaritons with magnetic orders grants access to rich many-body phenomena, but has been limited by the availability of material systems that exhibit simultaneous exciton resonances and magnetic ordering. Here we report magnetically-dressed microcavity exciton-polaritons in the van der Waals antiferromagnetic (AFM) semiconductor CrSBr coupled to a Tamm plasmon microcavity. Angle-resolved spectroscopy reveals an exceptionally high exciton-polariton coupling strength attaining 169 meV, demonstrating ultrastrong coupling that persists up to room temperature. Temperature-dependent exciton-polariton spectroscopy senses the magnetic order change from AFM to paramagnetism in CrSBr, confirming its magnetic nature. By applying an out-of-plane magnetic field, an effective tuning of the polariton energy is further achieved while maintaining the ultrastrong exciton-photon coupling strength, which is attributed to the spin canting process that modulates the interlayer exciton interaction. Our work proposes a hybrid quantum platform enabled by robust opto-electronic-magnetic coupling, promising for quantum interconnects and transducers., Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures

supplementary

Vibrational spectroscopy is a ubiquitous technology that derives the species, constituents, and morphology of an object from its natural vibrations. However, the vibrational spectra of mesoscopic particles - including most biological cells - have remained hidden from existing technologies. These particles are expected to vibrate faintly at megahertz to gigahertz rates, imposing unpractical sensitivity and resolution for current optical and piezoelectric spectroscopy. Here we demonstrate the real-time measurement of natural vibrations of single mesoscopic particles using an optical microresonator, extending the reach of vibrational spectroscopy to a new spectral window. Conceptually, a spectrum of vibrational modes of the particles is stimulated photoacoustically, and correlated to a high-quality-factor optical resonance for the ultrasensitive readout. Experimentally, this scheme is testified by measuring mesoscopic particles with different constituents, sizes, and internal structures, showing an unprecedented signal-to-noise ratio of 50 dB and detection bandwidth over 1 GHz. This new technology is further applied for the biomechanical fingerprinting of single microbial cells with different species and living states. The present method opens up new avenues to study single-particle mechanical properties in vibrational degrees of freedom, and may find applications in photoacoustic sensing and imaging, cavity optomechanics and biomechanics., Comment: 15 pages, 10 figures

Supplemental Document

Hybrid metal-dielectric structures, which combine the advantages of both metal and dielectric materials, support high-confined but low-loss magnetic and electric resonances under deliberate arrangements. However, their potential for enhancing magnetic emission has not been explored. Here, we study the simultaneous magnetic and electric Purcell enhancement supported by a hybrid structure consisting of a dielectric nanoring and a silver nanorod Such a structure enables low Ohmic loss and highly-confined field under the mode hybridization of magnetic resonances on nanoring and electric resonances on nanorod in the optical communication band. So, the 60-fold magnetic Purcell enhancement and 45-fold electric Purcell enhancement can be achieved simultaneously with $>95\%$ of the radiation transmitted to far field. The position of emitter has a several-ten-nanometer tolerance for sufficiently large Purcell enhancement, which brings convenience to experimental fabrications. Moreover, an array formed by this hybrid nanostructure can further enhance the magnetic Purcell factors. The findings provide a possibility to selectively excite the magnetic and electric emission in integrated photon circuits. It may also facilitate brighter magnetic emission sources and light-emitting metasurfaces in a simpler arrangement., 10 pages, 6 figures, submitted to Chin. Opt. Lett

Simulating the dynamic evolutions of physical and molecular systems in a quantum computer is of fundamental interest in many applications. Its implementation requires efficient quantum simulation algorithms. The Lie-Trotter-Suzuki approximation algorithm, also well known as the Trotterization, is a basic algorithm in quantum dynamic simulation. A multi-product algorithm that is a linear combination of multiple Trotterizations has been proposed to improve the approximation accuracy. Implementing such multi-product Trotterization in quantum computers however remains experimentally challenging and its success probability is limited. Here, we modify the multi-product Trotterization and combine it with the oblivious amplitude amplification to simultaneously reach a high simulation precision and high success probability. We experimentally implement the modified multi-product algorithm in an integrated-photonics programmable quantum simulator in silicon, which allows the initialization, manipulation and measurement of four-qubit states and a sequence of linearly combined controlled-unitary gates, to emulate the dynamics of a coupled electron and nuclear spins system. Theoretical and experimental results are in good agreement, and they both show the modified multi-product algorithm can simulate Hamiltonian dynamics with a higher precision than conventional Trotterizations and a nearly deterministic success probability. We certificate the multi-product algorithm in a small-scale quantum simulator based on linear combinations of operations, and this work promises the practical implementations of quantum dynamics simulations., Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures

Modeling optical field propagation in highly scattering and birefringent medium is of important interest to many photonic research branches. Despite the existence of numerical electromagnetic simulation tools and beam propagation method frameworks, there has been a lack of an analytical model including the full tensor nature of birefringence, which is an essential forward-propagation tool for applications requiring efficiently iterative regularization and end-to-end designs. Here, we present an analytical tool for modeling field propagation in a birefringent scattering medium by including a full set of field tensor elements and multiple scattering characteristics. Birefringence-controlled field propagation experiments were successfully carried out to validate the proposed model., Comment: 18 pages, 4 figures

Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky (EPR) steering or quantum steering describes the "spooky-action-at-a-distance" that one party is able to remotely alter the states of the other if they share a certain entangled state. Generally, it admits an operational interpretation as the task of verifying entanglement without trust in the steering party's devices, making it lying intermediate between Bell nonlocality and entanglement. Together with the asymmetrical nature, quantum steering has attracted a considerable interest from theoretical and experimental sides over past decades. In this Perspective, we present a brief overview of the EPR steering with emphasis on recent progress, discuss current challenges, opportunities and propose various future directions. We look to the future which directs research to a larger-scale level beyond massless and microscopic systems to reveal steering of higher dimensionality, and to build up steered networks composed of multiple parties., Comment: PRX Quantum accepted

Magnon cat state represents a macroscopic quantum superposition of collective magnetic excitations of large number spins that not only provides fundamental tests of macroscopic quantum effects but also finds applications in quantum metrology and quantum computation. In particular, remote generation and manipulation of Schr��dinger cat states are particularly interesting for the development of long-distance and large-scale quantum information processing. Here, we propose an approach to remotely prepare magnon even/odd cat states by performing local non-Gaussian operations on the optical mode that is entangled with magnon mode through pulsed optomagnonic interaction. By evaluating key properties of the resulting cat states, we show that for experimentally feasible parameters they are generated with both high fidelity and nonclassicality, and with a size large enough to be useful for quantum technologies. Furthermore, the effects of experimental imperfections such as the error of projective measurements and dark count when performing single-photon operations have been discussed, where the lifetime of the created magnon cat states is expected to be $t\sim1\,��$s., 14 pages, 10 figures

The phase delay of a local electric field, being well-known in plasmonic nanostructures, has seldom been investigated to modulate the plasmon-exciton interaction. Here, with the single-particle spectroscopy method, we experimentally investigate the phase effect in plasmon-exciton coupling systems consisting of monolayer WSe2 and an individual gold nanorod. The local plasmon phase delay is tuned by adopting various nanorods with different resonant energies respective to the exciton. We find that the local plasmon phase delay between the excitons and the plasmonic modes is as equally essential as the amplitude. The phase delay modulates the plasmon-exciton coupling considerably, resulting in an asymmetric spectral line-shape due to the interference behavior. There is an excellent agreement for the phase delay between the numerically calculated near-field phase distribution and the experimental results. The local phase delay can act as an effective way to modulate the properties of plexcitonic coupling at the nanoscale, which may have potential applications in nanoscale sensing, solar energy devices, and enhancing nonlinear processes.

Linear-optical logic gates have the potential to be the bases of the next-generation information technology (IT) because of the low power consumption and rapid response. This study proposes a general theoretical model to obtain the optimal solutions for linear-optical logic gates. All common logic gates (AND, OR, NOT, NAND, NOR, XOR, and XNOR) are experimentally demonstrated with one single sample structure based on ultracompact plasmonic waveguides. The measured intensity contrast ratio between the output-logic “1” and “0” states reaches 28 dB for the OR gate and 9.4 dB for the AND gate, thereby approaching the theoretical maximum of infinity and 9.5 dB, respectively. The proposed logic gates provide uniform output intensities for identical output logics when the input logics are different. The measured intensity discrepancies are below 1% for the three output-logic “1” states of the OR gate and the three output-logic “0” states of the AND gate. This phenomenon is favored in practical applications and th...

We discuss general properties of the equilibrium state of parametric down-conversion in superconducting quantum circuits with detunings and Kerr anharmonicities, in the strongly nonlinear regime. By comparing moments of the steady state and those of a Schr��dinger cat, we show that true Schr��dinger cats cannot survive in the steady state if there is any single-photon loss. A delta-function 'cat-like' steady-state distribution can be formed, but this only exists in the limit of an extremely large nonlinearity. The steady state is a mixed state, which is more complex than a mixture or linear combination of delta-functions, and whose purity is reduced by driving. We expect this general behaviour to occur in other driven, dissipative quantum subharmonic non-equilibrium open systems., 10 pages, 4 figures

Cavity quantum electrodynamics studies light-matter interactions at single quanta level. Chiral photon-emitter coupling in photonic structures is characterized as unidirectional propagation locked by the local polarization of light. However, to realize the strong interaction of photon-emitter with direction-locked propagation, which will bring novel applications in nonreciprocal quantum devices, has not been reported yet. Here, we propose the coupled photonic crystal and metallic nanoparticle structure, where through strong local field with high helicity, the rate of circularly polarized photons emitting into photonic crystal waveguide is one order larger than that without the nanoparticle and the linewidth of Rabi splitting spectra is about one-tenth of that with only the nanoparticle, both with $\sim$ 95$\%$ photons propagating unidirectionally, which can be utilized in directional quantum light sources., Comment: 35 pages, 16 figures

Supplementary materials

For highly interested organolead perovskite based solar cells, the photoproducts are regarded as the co-existed exciton and free carriers. In this study, we carefully re-examined this conclusion with our recently developed density-resolved spectroscopic method. Heat-annealing related two photoproduct systems are observed. We found that the widely accepted model is only true for single crystal and freshly made films without heat-annealing. For those sufficiently heat-annealed films, another system presenting significant emissive exciton-carrier collision (ECC) is discovered. In addition, the appearing of ECC indicates the emerging of an internal morphology after heat annealing, which is assigned to a recently discussed twinning subgrain structure. We proved that such subgrain structures broadly exist in perovskite films. This finding could prove the morphological basis for high performance of perovskite working layers., Comment: 18pages, 3 figures. supporting info supplied

Supplementary materials

We demonstrate that the fluorescent emitters can increase light emission from the plasmonic nanostructures in turn. With the help of atomic force microscopy, a hybrid system consisting of a fluorescent nanodiamond and a gold nanoparticle was assembled step-by-step for in situ optical measurements. We found that the emission from the nanoparticle increased compared with that before coupling. The interaction between plasmonic nanostructures and fluorescent emitter was understood as an entity based on the concept of a quantized optical cavity by considering the nanodiamond and the nanoparticle as a two-level energy system and a nanoresonator, respectively. The theoretical calculations reveal that both the plasmonic coupling effect and the dielectric nanoantenna effect contribute to the enhancement of light emission from the gold nanoparticles., Comment: 5 pages and 4 figures

Localized-surface plasmon resonance is of importance in both fundamental and applied physics for the subwavelength confinement of optical field, but realization of quantum coherent processes is confronted with challenges due to strong dissipation. Here we propose to engineer the electromagnetic environment of metallic nanoparticles (MNPs) using optical microcavities. An analytical quantum model is built to describe the MNP-microcavity interaction, revealing the significantly enhanced dipolar radiation and consequentially reduced Ohmic dissipation of the plasmonic modes. As a result, when interacting with a quantum emitter, the microcavity-engineered MNP enhances the quantum yield over 40 folds and the radiative power over one order of magnitude. Moreover, the system can enter the strong coupling regime of cavity quantum electrodynamics, providing a promising platform for the study of plasmonic quantum electrodynamics, quantum information processing, precise sensing and spectroscopy., Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures

Supplementary materials

The charge carrier balance strategy by interface engineering was employed to optimize carrier transport in the planar heterojunction perovskite solar cells, leading to high power conversion efficiency of 18.72% and stabilized output efficiency of 17.70%.

Using transient fluorescent spectra at time-zero, we develop a density-resolved fluorescent spectroscopic method for investigating photoproducts in CH3NH3PbI3 perovskite and related photophysics. The density dependent dynamical co-existence of excitons and free carriers over a wide density range is experimentally observed for the first time. The exciton binding energy (EB) and the effective mass of electron-hole pair can be estimated based on such co-existence. No ionic polarization is found contributing to photophysical behavior. It also solves the conflict between the large experimentally measured EB and the small predicted values. The spectroscopic method also helps to detect the true free carrier density under continuous illumination without the interference of ionic conductivity. Our methods and results profoundly enrich the study and understanding of the photophysics in perovskite materials for photovoltaic applications., Comment: 15 pages for manuscript, 4 figures, original paper 7 pages for supplemental materials, 3 figures, 2 tables

We demonstrate a high-performance apertureless near-field probe made of a tapered metal tip with a set of periodic shallow grooves near the apex. The spontaneous emission from a single emitter near the tip is investigated systematically for the side-illumination tip enhanced spectroscopy (TES). In contrast with the bare tapered metal tip in conventional side-illumination TES, the corrugated probe not only enhances strongly local excitation field but also concentrates the emission directivity, which leads to high collection efficiency and signal-to-noise ratio. In particular, we propose an asymmetric TES tip based on two coupling nanorods with different length at the apex to realize unidirectional enhanced emission rate from a single emitter. Interestingly, we find that the radiation pattern is sensitive to the emission wavelength and the emitter positions respective to the apex, which can result in an increase of signal-to-noise ratio by suppressing undesired signal. The proposed asymmetrical corrugated probe opens up a broad range of practical applications, e.g. increasing the detection efficiency of tip enhanced spectroscopy at the single-molecule level.

Artificial metasurfaces are capable of completely manipulating the phase, amplitude, and polarization of light with high spatial resolutions. The emerging design based on high-index and low-loss dielectrics has led to the realization of novel metasurfaces with high transmissions, but these devices usually operate at the limited bandwidth, and are sensitive to the incident polarization. Here, for the first time we report experimentally the polarization-independent and high-efficiency dielectric metasurfaces spanning the visible wavelengths about 200 nm, which are of importance for novel flat optical devices operating over a broad spectrum. The diffraction efficiencies of the gradient metasurfaces consisting of the multi-fold symmetric nano-crystalline silicon nanopillars are up to 93% at 670 nm, and exceed 75% at the wavelengths from 600 to 800 nm for the two orthogonally polarized incidences. These dielectric metasurfaces hold great potential to replace prisms, lenses and other conventional optical elements.

Coherent light-matter interaction at the single photon and electronic qubit level promises the remarkable potential for nonclassical information processing. Against the efforts of improving the figure of merit of the cavities, here we demonstrate strong anharmonicity in the polariton dressed states via dark state resonances in a highly dissipative cavity. It is shown that vacuum Rabi oscillation occurs for a single quantum emitter inside a cavity even with bosonic decay-to-interaction rate ratio exceeding $10^{2}$, when the photon field is coupled to an auxiliary high-$Q$ cavity. Moreover, photon blockade is observable in such a highly-dissipative cavity quantum electrodynamics system. This study provides a promising platform for overcoming decoherence and advancing the coherent manipulation of polariton qubits., Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures

In the current work we demonstrate mode-locked fiber laser with automatic adjustment a coherence degree of the output pulses. As a source of the pulses we used 8-figure fiber laser with two amplifying fibers inside both loops of the laser cavity. Such configuration provides various pulsed regimes that have different degree of coherence from fully mode-locked single scale pulses to partly mode-locked double scale pulses. To search a pulsed regime with defined parameters we applied automatic genetic algorithm. To prove the feasibility of the genetic algorithm we applied it to find double – scale pulsed regimes with a fixed envelope duration of 50 ps and the contrast of the coherence peak in range of 0.02 – 0.5.