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We theoretically investigate the problem of position detection of an optically levitated Mie particle. The information radiation field (IRF) is proposed and defined to characterize the scattered light carrying complete information about the center-of-mass (c.m.) motion of the particle. Based on the IRF, we suggest an optimal detection scheme for the position of arbitrary particles. We calculate both the information losses of objective collection and mode-matching in levitated optomechanical experiments. Our results conclude that the backward detection scheme, using an incident Gaussian beam focused by a high numerical aperture lens, provides sufficient information to achieve the quantum ground state through cooling of the three-dimensional c.m. motion of the Mie particle.

Optical frequency combs (OFCs), composed of equally spaced frequency tones, have spurred advancements in communications, spectroscopy, precision measurement and fundamental physics research. A prevalent method for generating OFCs involves the electro-optic (EO) effect, i.e., EO comb, renowned for its rapid tunability via precise microwave field control. Recent advances in integrated lithium niobate (LN) photonics have greatly enhanced the efficiency of EO effect, enabling the generation of broadband combs with reduced microwave power. However, parasitic nonlinear effects, such as Raman scattering and four-wave mixing, often emerge in high quality nonlinear devices, impeding the expansion of comb bandwidth and the minimization of frequency noise. Here, we tame these nonlinear effects and present a novel type of OFC, i.e., the self-locked Raman-electro-optic (REO) microcomb by leveraging the collaboration of EO, Kerr and Raman scattering processes. The spectral width of the REO microcomb benefits from the Raman gain and Kerr effect, encompassing nearly 1400 comb lines spanning over 300 nm with a fine repetition rate of 26.03 GHz, much larger than the pure EO combs. Remarkably, the system can maintain a self-locked low-noise state in the presence of multiple nonlinearities without the need for external active feedback. Our approach points to a direction for improving the performance of microcombs and paves the way for exploring new nonlinear physics, such as new laser locking techniques, through the collaboration of inevitable multiple nonlinear effects in integrated photonics.

Accurate measurement of pressure with a wide dynamic range holds significant importance for various applications. This issue can be realized with a mechanical nano-oscillator, where the pressure-related collisions with surrounding molecules induce its energy dissipation. However, this energy dissipation of the nano-oscillator may be overshadowed by other processes. Here, we apply the second-order coherence analysis to accurately characterize those distinct dissipation processes. Based on an optically levitated nano-oscillator, we successfully obtain precise measurements of the air pressure surrounding the particles from atmosphere to 7E-6 mbar, over 8 orders of magnitude. It proves that the mechanical nano-oscillator is an extremely promising candidate for precision pressure sensing applications. Moreover, the second-order coherence analysis method on a classical system can pave the way to characterize the dynamic properties of an oscillator, which will benefit microscopic thermodynamics, precision measurement, and macroscopic quantum research., Comment: 6 pages. 4 figures

Symmetric informationally complete measurements are both important building blocks in many quantum information protocols and the seminal example of a generalised, non-orthogonal, quantum measurement. In higher-dimensional systems, these measurements become both increasingly interesting and increasingly complex to implement. Here, we demonstrate an integrated quantum photonic platform to realize such a measurement on three-level quantum systems. The device operates at the high fidelities necessary for verifying a genuine many-outcome quantum measurement, performing near-optimal quantum state discrimination, and beating the projective limit in quantum random number generation. Moreover, it is programmable and can readily implement other quantum measurements at similarly high quality. Our work paves the way for the implementation of sophisticated higher-dimensional quantum measurements that go beyond the traditional orthogonal projections., Comment: 21 pages,13 figures

The use of nanophotonics for optical manipulation has continuously attracted interest in both fundamental research and practical applications, due to its significantly enhanced capabilities at the nanoscale. In this work, we showed that plasmonic particles can be trapped at off-axis location in Gaussian beams assisted by surface plasmon resonance. The off-axis displacement can be tuned at the sub-wavelength scale by the incident light beams. Based on these, we propose that a superfast orbital rotation of particles in continuous-wave laser beam can be realized in tightly focused circularly polarized Gaussian beams. The rotation has a tunable orbital radius at the sub-wavelength scale and a superfast rotation speed (more than 10^4 r/s in water under common laboratory conditions). Our work will aid in the development of optically driven nanomachines, and find applications in micro/nano-rheology, micro-fluid mechanics, and biological research at the nanoscale., Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures

Optical microscopy image plays an important role in scientific research through the direct visualization of the nanoworld, where the imaging mechanism is described as the convolution of the point spread function (PSF) and emitters. Based on a priori knowledge of the PSF or equivalent PSF, it is possible to achieve more precise exploration of the nanoworld. However, it is an outstanding challenge to directly extract the PSF from microscopy images. Here, with the help of self-supervised learning, we propose a physics-informed masked autoencoder (PiMAE) that enables a learnable estimation of the PSF and emitters directly from the raw microscopy images. We demonstrate our method in synthetic data and real-world experiments with significant accuracy and noise robustness. PiMAE outperforms DeepSTORM and the Richardson-Lucy algorithm in synthetic data tasks with an average improvement of 19.6\% and 50.7\% (35 tasks), respectively, as measured by the normalized root mean square error (NRMSE) metric. This is achieved without prior knowledge of the PSF, in contrast to the supervised approach used by DeepSTORM and the known PSF assumption in the Richardson-Lucy algorithm. Our method, PiMAE, provides a feasible scheme for achieving the hidden imaging mechanism in optical microscopy and has the potential to learn hidden mechanisms in many more systems.

Non-equilibrium thermodynamics provides a general framework for understanding non-equilibrium processes, particularly in small systems that are typically far from equilibrium and dominated by fluctuations. However, the experimental investigation of non-equilibrium thermodynamics remains challenging due to the lack of approaches to precisely manipulate non-equilibrium states and dynamics. Here, by shaping the effective potential of energy, we propose a general method to construct a non-equilibrium steady state (NESS) with arbitrary energy distribution. Using a well-designed energy-dependent feedback damping, the dynamics of an optically levitated nanoparticle in vacuum is manipulated and driven into a NESS with the desired energy distribution. Based on this approach, a phonon laser state is constructed with an ultra-narrow linewidth of 6.40 uHz. Such an arbitrary NESS construction method provides a new approach to manipulating the dynamics processes of micromechanical systems and paves the way for the systematic study of non-equilibrium dynamics in interdisciplinary research fields.

The accurate radio frequency (RF) ranging and localizing of objects has benefited the researches including autonomous driving, the Internet of Things, and manufacturing. Quantum receivers have been proposed to detect the radio signal with ability that can outperform conventional measurement. As one of the most promising candidates, solid spin shows superior robustness, high spatial resolution and miniaturization. However, challenges arise from the moderate response to a high frequency RF signal. Here, by exploiting the coherent interaction between quantum sensor and RF field, we demonstrate quantum enhanced radio detection and ranging. The RF magnetic sensitivity is improved by three orders to 21 $pT/\sqrt{Hz}$, based on nanoscale quantum sensing and RF focusing. Further enhancing the response of spins to the target's position through multi-photon excitation, a ranging accuracy of 16 $\mu m$ is realized with a GHz RF signal. The results pave the way for exploring quantum enhanced radar and communications with solid spins.

The newly established Heisenberg limit in arbitrary waveform estimation is quite different with parameter estimation and shows a unique characteristic of a future quantum version of oscilloscope. However, it is still a non-trivial challenge to generate a large number of exotic quantum entangled states to achieve this quantum limit. Here, by employing the time-domain quantum difference detection method, we demonstrate Heisenberg-limited waveform quantum estimation with diamond spins under ambient condition in the experiment. Periodic dynamical decoupling is applied to enhance both the dynamic range and sensitivity by one order of magnitude. Using this quantum-enhanced estimation scheme, the estimation error of an unknown waveform is reduced by more than $5$ dB below the standard quantum limit with $N\sim{\text{2}} \times {\text{1}}{{\text{0}}^3}$ resources, where more than ${1 \times {\text{1}}{{\text{0}}^5}}$ resources would be required to achieve a similar error level using classical detection. This work provides an essential step towards realizing quantum-enhanced structure recognition in a continuous space and time., Comment: 15 pages, 8 figures

Focusing electromagnetic field to enhance the interaction with matter has been promoting researches and applications of nano electronics and photonics. Usually, the evanescent-wave coupling is adopted in various nano structures and materials to confine the electromagnetic field into a subwavelength space. Here, based on the direct coupling with confined electron oscillations in a nanowire, we demonstrate an extreme localization of microwave field down to 10$^{-6}\lambda$. A hybrid nanowire-bowtie antenna is further designed to focus the free-space microwave to this deep-subwavelength space. Detected by the nitrogen vacancy center in diamond, the field intensity and microwave-spin interaction strength are enhanced by 2.0$\times$10$^{8}$ and 1.4$\times$10$^{4}$ times, respectively. Such an extreme concentration of microwave field will further promote integrated quantum information processing, sensing and microwave photonics in a nanoscale system., Comment: 16 pages, 10 figures

We experimentally demonstrate fast and high-fidelity geometric control of a quantum system with the most brachistochrone method on hybrid spin registers in diamond. Based on the time-optimal universal geometric control, single geometric gates with the fidelities over 99.2% on the spin state of nitrogen-vacancy center are realized with average durations shortened by 74.9%, comparing with conventional geometric method. The fidelity of the fast geometric two-qubit gate exceeds 96.5% on the hybrid spin registers. With these fast high-fidelity gates available, we implement quantum entanglement-enhanced phase estimation algorithm and demonstrate the Heisenberg quantum limit at room-temperature. By comparing with the conventional geometric circuit, the measurement bandwidth and sensitivity is enhanced by 3.5 and 2.9 times. Hence, our results show that high-fidelity quantum control based on a fast geometric route will be a versatile tool for broad applications of quantum information processing in practice., Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures

Nitrogen-vacancy quantum defects in diamond offer a promising platform for magnetometry because of their remarkable optical and spin properties. In this Letter, we present a high-sensitivity and wide-bandwidth fiber-based quantum magnetometer for practical applications. By coating the diamond surface with silver reflective film, both the fluorescence collection and excitation efficiency are enhanced. Additionally, tracking pulsed optically detected magnetic resonance spectrum allowed a magnetic field sensitivity of $35$ pT$/\sqrt{\rm{Hz}}$ and a bandwidth of $4.1$ KHz. Finally, this magnetometer was successfully applied to map the magnetic field induced by the current-carrying copper-wire mesh. Such a stable and compact magnetometry can provide a powerful tool in many areas of physical, chemical, and biological researches., Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures

The nonlinear fluorescence emission has been widely applied for the high spatial resolution optical imaging. Here, we studied the fluorescence anomalous saturating effect of the nitrogen vacancy defect in diamond. The fluorescence reduction was observed with high power laser excitation. It increased the nonlinearity of the fluorescence emission, and changed the spatial frequency distribution of the fluorescence image. We used a differential excitation protocol to extract the high spatial frequency information. By modulating the excitation laser's power, the spatial resolution of imaging was improved approximate 1.6 times in comparison with the confocal microscopy. Due to the simplicity of the experimental setup and data processing, we expect this method can be used for improving the spatial resolution of sensing and biological labeling with the defects in solids.

Experimental realization of a universal set of quantum logic gates with high-fidelity is critical to quantum information processing, which is always challenging by inevitable interaction between the quantum system and environment. Geometric quantum computation is noise immune, and thus offers a robust way to enhance the control fidelity. Here, we experimentally implement the recently proposed extensible nonadiabatic holonomic quantum computation with solid spins in diamond at room-temperature, which maintains both flexibility and resilience against decoherence and system control errors. Compared with previous geometric method, the fidelities of a universal set of holonomic single-qubit and two-qubit quantum logic gates are improved in experiment. Therefore, this work makes an important step towards fault-tolerant scalable geometric quantum computation in realistic systems., Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures

The nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond has been broadly applied in quantum sensing since it is sensitive to different physical quantities. Meanwhile, it is difficult to isolate disturbances from unwanted physical quantities in practical applications. Here, we present a robust fiber-based quantum thermometer which can significantly isolate the magnetic field noise and microwave power shift. With a frequency modulation scheme, we realize the temperature measurement by detecting the variation of the sharp-dip in the zero-field optically detected magnetic resonance spectrum in a high-density nitrogen-vacancy ensemble. Thanks to its simplicity and compatibility in implementation and robustness in the isolation of magnetic and microwave noise, this quantum thermometer is then applied to the surface temperature imaging of an electronic chip with a sensitivity of $18$ $\rm{mK}/\sqrt{\rm{Hz}}$. It paves the way to high sensitive temperature measurement in ambiguous environments., Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures

The quality of a quantum operation determines the performance of quantum information processing, such as the sensitivity of quantum sensing. Different from the fidelity of quantum operation in quantum computation, we present an effective function to evaluate the performance and diagnose the imperfection of operations in multi-pulse based quantum sensing. The evaluation function directly links the realistic sensitivity with intrinsic sensitivity in a simple way. Moreover, guided by this evaluation function, we optimize a composite pulse sequence for high sensitivity nitrogen-vacancycenter based magnetometry against spectrum inhomogeneities and control errors to improve the signal-to-noise ratio of nanoscale nuclear magnetic resonance by 1 order of magnitude. It marks an important step towards quantitative quantum sensing with imperfect quantum control in practical applications., Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures

Light has shown up an incredibe capability in precision measurement based on opto-mechanic interaction in high vacuum by isolating environment noises. However, there are still obstructions, such as displacement and mass estimation error, highly hampering the improvement of absolute accuracy at the nanoscale. Here, we present a nonlinearity based metrology to precisely measure the position and mass of a nanoparticle with optical levitation under $10^{-5}$ mbar, 6-order of magnitude lower than the electrostatic-force and stochastic-force-based counterparts. By precisely controlling the amplitude of the levitated nanoparticle at the nonlinear regime, we realized a feasible sub-picometer-level position measurement with an uncertainty of $1.0\%$ without the prior information of mass, which can be further applied to weigh the femtogram-level mass with an uncertainty of $2.2\%$. It will also pave the way to construct a well-calibrated opto-mechanic platform in high vacuum for high sensitivity and accuracy measurement in force and acceleration at the nanoscale and the study in quantum superposition at the mesoscopic scale., Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures

Nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond are attractive as quantum sensors owing to their remarkable optical and spin properties under ambient conditions. Here we experimentally demonstrated a hybrid fiber-based thermometer coupled with nitrogen-vacancy center ensemble and a permanent magnet, where the temperature sensitivity was improved by converting the temperature variation to the magnetic field change based on the thermal-demagnetization of the permanent magnet. We have achieved both large temperature working range (room temperature to 373 K) and millikelvin sensitivity (1.6 mK/sqrt(Hz)), nearly 6-fold improvement compared with conventional technique. This stable and compact hybrid thermometer will enable a wide range of applications for large-area detection and imaging with high temperature sensitivity., Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures

The motion control of a levitated nanoparticle plays a central role in optical levitation for fundamental studies and practical applications. Here, we presented a digital parametric feedback cooling based on switching between two trapping laser intensity levels with square wave modulations. The effects of modulation depth and modulation signal phase on the cooling result were investigated in detail. With such a digital parametric feedback method, the centre-of-mass temperature of all three motional degrees of freedom can be cooled to dozens of milli-Kelvin, which paved the way to fully control the motion of the levitated nanoparticle with a programmable digital process for wild applications., Comment: 5 pages, 6 figures

Optical detection of spin state has been widely used for the solid state spin qubit in the application of quantum information processing. The signal contrast determines the accuracy of quantum state manipulation, sensitivity of quantum sensing and resolution of quantum imaging. Here, we demonstrated a time-gated fluorescence detection method for enhancing the spin state signal contrast of nitrogen vacancy (NV) center in diamond. By adjusting the delay between time gate and the excitation laser pulse, we improved both the signal contrast and signal-to-noise ratio for NV spin detection. An enhancement ratio of 1.86 times was reached for the signal contrast. Utilizing the time-gated fluorescence detection, we further demonstrated a high contrast quantum imaging of nanoparticle's stray magnetic field. Without any additional manipulation of the quantum state, we expect that this method can be used to improve the performance of various applications with NV center.

The sensitivity of a practical quantum magnetometer is challenged by both inhomogeneous coupling between sensors and environment and errors in quantum control. Based on the physical criteria of modern quantum sensing, we present a robust and effective composite-pulse for high fidelity operation against inhomogeneous broadening of sensor and control errors via optimized modulation of control field. Such a technique is verified on nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond to keep almost perfect operation up to a detuning as larger as $110\%$. The sensitivity of the magnetometer with NV center ensemble is experimentally improved by a factor of $4$, comparing to dynamical decoupling with normal rectangular pulse. Our work marks an important step towards high trustworthy ultra-sensitive quantum sensing with imperfect quantum control in realistic systems. The used principle however, is universal and not restricted to NV center ensemble magnetometer., Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures

The memory effects in non-Markovian quantum dynamics can induce the revival of quantum coherence, which is believed to provide important physical resources for quantum information processing (QIP). However, no real quantum algorithms have been demonstrated with the help of such memory effects. Here, we experimentally implemented a non-Markovianity-assisted highfidelity refined Deutsch-Jozsa algorithm (RDJA) with a solid spin in diamond. The memory effects can induce pronounced nonmonotonic variations in the RDJA results, which were confirmed to follow a non-Markovian quantum process by measuring the non-Markovianity of the spin system. By applying the memory effects as physical resources with the assistance of dynamical decoupling, the probability of success of RDJA was elevated above 97% in the open quantum system. This study not only demonstrates that the non-Markovianity is an important physical resource but also presents a feasible way to employ this physical resource. It will stimulate the application of the memory effects in non-Markovian quantum dynamics to improve the performance of practical QIP., Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures

The atom-light interaction in a three-level system has shown significant physical phenomena, such as electromagnetically induced transparency and Autler{Townes splitting (ATS), for broad applications in classical and quantum information techniques. Here, we optimally demonstrated the ATS with a quantum state manipulation method. The ATS in the dephasing-dominated diamond NV center system was successfully recovered by coherent microwave control, which cannot be observed with traditional method. The dynamical process of ATS was investigated in detail, revealing a nontrivial quantum interference with geometric phase modulations. Based on the quantum interference, the signal of the optimal ATS is twice as intense as those with traditional observation method., Comment: 10 pages and 9 figures

Non-reciprocal devices, which allow the non-reciprocal signal routing, serve as the fundamental elements in photonic and microwave circuits and are crucial in both classical and quantum information processing. The radiation-pressure-induced coupling between light and mechanical motion in traveling wave resonators has been exploited to break the Lorentz reciprocity, realizing non-reciprocal devices without magnetic materials. Here, we experimentally demonstrate a reconfigurable nonreciprocal device with alternative functions of either a circulator or a directional amplifier via the optomechanically induced coherent photon-phonon conversion or gain. The demonstrated device exhibits considerable flexibility and offers exciting opportunities for combining reconfigurability, non-reciprocity and active properties in single photonic structures, which can also be generalized to microwave as well as acoustic circuits., Comment: 13 pages, 4 Figures

The quantum statistics of particles is determined by both the spins and the indistinguishability of quantum states. Here we studied the quantum statistics of partially distinguishable photons by defining the multi-photon indistinguishability. The photon bunching co-efficient was formulated based on the properties of permutation symmetry, and a modified Bose--Einstein statistics was presented with an indistinguishability induced photon bunching effect. Moreover, the statistical transition of the photon state was studied for partially distinguishable photons, and the results shows the that indistinguishability exhibits the same role as that observed in the generation of laser. The results will fill the gap between Bose--Einstein and Poisson statistics for photons, and a formula is presented for the study of multi-photon quantum information processes., Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures

Photon statistics is one of the key properties of the photon state for the study of quantum coherence and quantum information techniques. Here, we discuss the photon indistinguishability induced bunching effect which can significantly change photon statistics. Through the measurement of the second-order degree of coherence of a mixed photon state composed of a single-photon state and a weak coherent state, the statistical transition from a classical behavior to a nonclassical behavior is experimentally demonstrated by modifying the indistinguishability of the two-photon states. The study will help us to understand and control the photon statistics with a method for quantum optical coherence and quantum information applications. It also indicates that the photon indistinguishability is a key parameter for multipartite quantum coherence., Comment: 5pages, 5 figures

We investigate the enhanced electric dipole-dipole interaction by surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) supported by the planar metal film waveguide. By taking two nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center electric-dipoles in diamond as an example, both the coupling strength and collective relaxation of two dipoles are studied with numerical Green Function method. Compared to the two-dipole coupling on planar surface, metal film provides stronger and tunable coupling coefficients. Enhancement of the interaction between coupled NV center dipoles could have applications in both quantum information and energy transfer investigation. Our investigation provides a systematical result for experimental applications based on dipole-dipole interaction mediated with SPPs on planar metal film., Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures

The nitrogen vacancy (NV) center in diamond has been widely applied for quantum information and sensing in last decade. Based on the laser polarization dependent excitation of fluorescence emission, we propose a super-resolution microscopy of NV center. A series of wide field images of NV centers are taken with different polarizations of the linear polarized excitation laser. The fluorescence intensity of NV center is changed with the relative angle between excitation laser polarization and the orientation of NV center dipole. The images pumped by different excitation laser polarizations are analyzed with Monte Carlo method. Then the symmetry axis and position of NV center are obtained with sub-diffraction resolution.

The near-infrared (NIR) optical pumped photophysics of nitrogen vacancy (NV) center in diamond was experimentally studied by considering both the charge state conversion and stimulated emission. We found that the NIR laser can help to highly enhance the charge state conversion rate, which can be applied to improve the performance of charge state depletion nanoscopy. Using a doughnut-shaped visible laser beam and a Gaussian-shaped NIR laser beam for charge state manipulation, we developed a low power charge state depletion nanoscopy for NV center. A spatial resolution of 14 nm was achieved with the depletion laser intensity approximately three orders lower than that used for the stimulated emission depletion nanoscopy with NV center. With high spatial resolution and low laser power, the nanoscopy can be used for nanoscale quantum sensing with NV center. And our study on the charge state conversion can help to further optimize the NV center spin state initialization and detection., Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures

Quantum metrology with entangled states in realistic noisy environments always suffers from decoherence. Therefore, the measurement precision is greatly reduced. Here we applied the dynamical decoupling method to protect the $N$-qubit quantum metrology protocol and successfully revived the scaling of the measurement precision as ${N^{-k}}$ with $k\in \left[{5/6,11/12}\right]$. The degree of the precision revival, as determined by the noise spectrum distribution, indicates that the performance of the protected protocol can be further improved by controlling the noise spectrum. Such a protected protocol is proved to be universal for entanglement-based quantum metrology in the pure dephasing and relaxation noise, which should stimulate the development of practical quantum metrology for weak signal detection of microscopic physics., Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, to appear in PRA

We demonstrate an optical far-field super-resolution microscopy using array of nitrogen vacancy centers in bulk diamond as near-field optical probes. The local optical field, which transmits through the nanostructures on the diamond surface, is measured by detecting the charge state conversion of nitrogen vacancy center. And the locating of nitrogen vacancy center with spatial resolution of 6.1 nm is realized with the charge state depletion nanoscopy. The nanostructures on the surface of diamond are then imaged with resolution below optical diffraction limit. The results offer an approach to built a general-purpose optical super-resolution microscopy and a convenient platform for high spatial resolution quantum sensing with nitrogen vacancy center.

The ultralong distance coupling between two Asymmetric Resonant Microcavities (ARCs) is studied. Different from traditional short distance tunneling coupling between microcavities, the high efficient free space directional emission and excitation allow ultralong distance energy transfer between ARCs. In this paper, a novel unidirectional emission ARC, which shows directionality I40 = 0.54, is designed for materials of refractive index n = 2.0. Compared with regular whispering gallery microresonators, the coupled unidirectional emission ARCs show modulations of resonance frequency and linewidth even when the distance between cavities is much longer than wavelength. The performances and properties of the ultralong distance interaction between ARCs are analyzed and studied by coupling mode theory in details. The ultralong distance interaction between ARCs provides a new way to free-space based optical interconnects between components in integrated photonic circuits., Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures

In this paper, we studied the repeatability and accuracy of the ray simulation for one kind of Asymmetric Resonant Cavities (ARCs) Half-Quadrupole-Half-Circle shaped cavity, and confirmed the robustness of the directionality about the shape errors. Based on these, we proposed a hill-climbing algorithm to optimize the ARCs for unidirectional emission. Different evaluation functions of directionality were tested and we suggested using the function of energy contained in a certain angle for highly collimated and unidirect ional emission. By this method, we optimized the ARCs to obtain about 0.46 of the total radiated energy in divergence angle of 40 degree in the far field. This optimization method is very powerful for the shape engineering of ARCs and could be applied in future studies of ARCs with specific emission properties.

The photonic bound state in the continuum (BIC) is discovered in a hybrid photonic circuit with low refractive index waveguide on a high refractive index thin membrane, where the optical dissipation is forbidden because of the destructive interference of different leakage channels. Based on the photonic BIC, the low mode area in a hybrid waveguide and high quality factor in a microresonator can be applied to enhance the light-matter interaction. Taking the fabrication-friendly polymer structure on diamond membrane as an example, those excellent optical performances can exist in a wide range of structure parameters with large fabrication tolerance and induce the strong coupling between photon and nitrogen-vacancy center in the diamond for scalable quantum information processors and networks. Such a fabrication-friendly structure with photonic BIC is also very promising in laser, nonlinear optical and quantum optical applications., Comment: 5 pages,4 figures

The system-environment interaction is simulated by light propagating in coupled photonic waveguides. The profile of the electromagnetic field provides intuitive physical insight to study the Markovian and non-Markovian dynamics of open quantum systems. The transition from non-Markovian to Markovian process is demonstrated by increasing the size of environment, as the energy evolution changes from oscillating to an exponential decay, and the revival period increases. Moreover, the dynamical decoupling with a sequence of phase modulations is introduced to such a photonic open system to form a band structure in time dimension, where the energy dissipation can be significantly accelerated or inhibited. It opens the possibility to tune the dissipation in photonic system, similar to the dynamic decoupling of spins., Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures

The underlying physics and detailed dynamical processes of the free space beam excitation to the asymmetry resonant microcavity are studied numerically. Taking the well-studied quadrupole deformed microcavity as an example, we use a Gaussian beam to excite the high-Q mode. The simulation provides a powerful platform to study the underlying physics. The transmission spectrum and intracavity energy can be obtained directly. Irregular transmission spectrum was observed, showing asymmetric Fano-type lineshapes which could be attributed to interference between the different light paths. Then excitation efficiencies about the aim distance of the incident Gaussian beam and the rotation angle of the cavity were studied, showing great consistence with the reversal of emission efficiencies. By projecting the position dependent excitation efficiency to the phase space, the correspondence between the excitation and emission was demonstrated. In addition, we compared the Husimi distributions of the excitation processes and provided more direct evidences of the dynamical tunneling process in the excitation process.

A practical quantum measurement method based on the quantum nature of anti-bunching photon emission has been developed to detect single particles without the restriction of the diffraction limit. By simultane- ously counting the single-photon and two-photon signals with fluorescence microscopy, the images of nearby Nitrogen-Vacancy centers in diamond at a distance of 8.5+/-2.4 nm have been successfully reconstructed. Also their axes information was optically obtained. This quantum statistical imaging technique, with a simple exper- imental setup, can also be easily generalized in the measuring and distinguishing of other physical properties with any overlapping, which shows high potential in future image and study of coupled quantum systems for quantum information techniques., Comment: 5 figures

A theoretical study of free space coupling to high-Q whispering gallery modes both in circular and deformed microcavities are presented. In the case of a circular cavity, both analytical solutions and asymptotic formulas are derived. The coupling efficiencies at different coupling regimes for cylinder incoming wave are discussed, and the maximum efficiency is estimated for the practical Gaussian beam excitation. In the case of a deformed cavity, the coupling efficiency can be higher if the excitation beam can match the intrinsic emission well and the radiation loss can be tuned by adjusting the degree of deformation. Employing an abstract model of slightly deformed cavity, we found that the asymmetric and peak like line shapes instead of the Lorentz-shape dip are universal in transmission spectra due to multi-mode interference, and the coupling efficiency can not be estimated from the absolute depth of the dip. Our results provide guidelines for free space coupling in experiments, suggesting that the high-Q ARCs can be efficiently excited through free space which will stimulate further experiments and applications of WGMs based on free space coupling., Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures

A broadband opto-mechanical phase shifter for photonic integrated circuits is proposed and numerically investigated. The structure consists of a mode-carrying waveguide and a deformable non-mode-carrying nanostring, which are parallel with each other. Utilizing the optical gradient force between them, the nanostring can be deflected. Thus the effective refractive indices of the waveguide is changed with the deformation, and further causes a phase shift. The phase shift under different geometry sizes, launched powers and boundary conditions are calculated and the dynamical properties as well as the thermal noise's effect are also discussed. It is demonstrated that a $\pi$ phase shift can be realized with only about 0.64 mW launched power and 50 $\mu m$ long nanostring. The proposed phase shifter may find potential usage in future investigation of photonic integrated circuits.

A waveguide structure consisting of a tapered nanofiber on a metal film is proposed and analyzed to support highly localized hybrid plasmonic modes. The hybrid plasmonic mode can be efficiently excited through the in-line tapered fiber based on adiabatic conversion and collected by the same fiber, which is very convenient in the experiment. Due to the ultrasmall mode area of plasmonic mode, the local electromagnetic field is greatly enhanced in this movable waveguide, which is potential for enhanced coherence light emitter interactions, such as waveguide quantum electrodynamics, single emitter spectrum and nonlinear optics.

Collimated directional emission is essentially required an asymmetric resonant cavity. In this paper, we theoretically investigate a type of peanut-shaped microcavity which can support highly directional emission with the emission divergence as small as 2.5o. The mechanism of the collimated emission is explained with the short-term ray trajectory and the intuitive lens model in detail. Wave simulation also confirms these results. This extremely narrow divergence of the emission holds a great potential in highly collimated lasing from on-chip microcavities.