Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Letter
  • Published:

Plasmon-assisted transmission of entangled photons

Nature volume 418, pages 304–306 (2002)Cite this article

Abstract

The state of a two-particle system is said to be entangled when its quantum-mechanical wavefunction cannot be factorized into two single-particle wavefunctions. This leads to one of the strongest counter-intuitive features of quantum mechanics, namely non-locality1,2. Experimental realization of quantum entanglement is relatively easy for photons; a starting photon can spontaneously split into a pair of entangled photons inside a nonlinear crystal. Here we investigate the effects of nanostructured metal optical elements3 on the properties of entangled photons. To this end, we place optically thick metal films perforated with a periodic array of subwavelength holes in the paths of the two entangled photons. Such arrays convert photons into surface-plasmon waves—optically excited compressive charge density waves—which tunnel through the holes before reradiating as photons at the far side4,5,6,7. We address the question of whether the entanglement survives such a conversion process. Our coincidence counting measurements show that it does, so demonstrating that the surface plasmons have a true quantum nature. Focusing one of the photon beams on its array reduces the quality of the entanglement. The propagation of the surface plasmons makes the array effectively act as a ‘which way’ detector.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Wavelength-dependent transmission of the arrays used in the experiment.
Figure 2: Experimental set-up. A 240-mW continuous-wave krypton-ion laser beam at a wavelength of 406.7 nm is directed onto a 1-mm-thick BBO nonlinear crystal, where the beam diameter is ∼0.50 mm (full width at 1/e2 points).
Figure 3: Biphoton fringes.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Greenberger, D. M., Horne, M. A. & Zeilinger, A. Multiparticle interferometry and the superposition principle. Phys. Today, 22–29 (August 1993)

  2. Bouwmeester, D. et al. Experimental quantum teleportation. Nature 390, 575–579 (1997)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Raether, H. Surface Plasmons (Springer, Berlin, 1988)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Ebbesen, T. W., Lezec, H. J., Ghaemi, H. F., Thio, T. & Wolff, P. A. Extraordinary optical transmission through sub-wavelength hole arrays. Nature 391, 667–669 (1998)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Martin-Moreno, L. et al. Theory of extraordinary optical transmission through subwavelength hole arrays. Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 1114–1117 (2001)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Ghaemi, H. F., Thio, T., Grupp, D. E., Ebbesen, T. W. & Lezec, H. J. Surface plasmons enhance optical transmission through subwavelength holes. Phys. Rev. B 58, 6779–6782 (1998)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Grupp, D. E., Lezec, H. J., Ebbesen, T. W., Pellerin, K. M. & Thio, T. Crucial role of metal surface in enhanced transmission through subwavelength apertures. Appl. Phys. Lett. 77, 1569–1571 (2000)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Bethe, H. A. Theory of diffraction by small holes. Phys. Rev. 66, 163–182 (1944)

    Article  ADS  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  9. Hecht, B., Bielefeldt, H., Novotny, L., Inouye, Y. & Pohl, D. W. Local excitation, scattering, and interference of surface plasmons. Phys. Rev. Lett. 77, 1889–1892 (1996)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Sönnichsen, C. et al. Launching surface plasmons into nanoholes in metal films. Appl. Phys. Lett. 77, 140–142 (2000)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  11. Kwiat, P. G. et al. New high-intensity source of polarization-entangled photon pairs. Phys. Rev. Lett. 75, 4337–4341 (1995)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Kurtsiefer, C., Oberparleiter, M. & Weinfurter, H. High efficiency entangled photon pair collection in type II parametric fluorescence. Phys. Rev. A 64, 023802-1–023802-4 (2001)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  13. Clauser, J. F., Horne, M. A., Shimony, A. & Holt, R. A. Proposed experiment to test local hidden-variable theories. Phys. Rev. Lett. 23, 880–884 (1969)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  14. Landau, L. D., Lifshitz, E. M. & Pitaevskii, L. P. Electrodynamics of Continuous Media 2nd edn (Pergamon, Oxford, 1984)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Lu, Y. J. & Ou, Z. Y. Observation of nonclassical photon statistics due to quantum interference. Phys. Rev. Lett. 88, 023601-1–023601-4 (2002)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  16. Kimble, H. J., Dagenais, M. & Mandel, L. Photon antibunching in resonance fluorescence. Phys. Rev. Lett. 39, 691–695 (1977)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank A. van Zuuk and E. van der Drift for the production of the hole arrays, and G. Nienhuis for theoretical discussions. This work was supported by the Stichting voor Fundamenteel Onderzoek der Materie (FOM), and the European Union under the IST-ATESIT contract.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Leiden University, Huygens Laboratory, PO Box 9504, 2300 RA, Leiden, The Netherlands

    E. Altewischer, M. P. van Exter & J. P. Woerdman

Authors
  1. E. Altewischer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. M. P. van Exter
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. J. P. Woerdman
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to E. Altewischer.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing financial interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Altewischer, E., van Exter, M. & Woerdman, J. Plasmon-assisted transmission of entangled photons. Nature 418, 304–306 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature00869

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature00869

This article is cited by

Comments

By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing