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Realization of superabsorption by time reversal of superradiance

Nature Photonics volume 15, pages 272–276 (2021)Cite this article

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Abstract

Emission and absorption of light lie at the heart of light–matter interaction1. Although emission and absorption rates are regarded as intrinsic properties of atoms and molecules, various ways to modify these rates have been sought in applications such as quantum information processing2, metrology3 and light-energy harvesting4. One promising approach is to utilize collective behaviour of emitters in the same way as in superradiance5. Although superradiance has been observed in diverse systems3,6,7,8,9,10, its conceptual counterpart in absorption has never been realized11 until now. Here we demonstrate enhanced cooperative absorption—superabsorption—by implementing a time-reversal process of superradiance. The observed superabsorption rate is much higher than that of ordinary absorption, with the number of absorbed photons scaling with the square of the number of atoms, exhibiting the cooperative nature of superabsorption. The present superabsorption—which performs beyond the limitations of conventional absorption—can facilitate weak-signal sensing1, light-energy harvesting11 and light–matter quantum interfaces2.

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Fig. 1: Experimental scheme and state preparation with a nanohole array.
Fig. 2: Time-dependent intracavity photon numbers by superradiance, superabsorption and ordinary absorption.
Fig. 3: Comparison of superabsorption and ordinary absorption.
Fig. 4: Quadratic dependence of superabsorption on atom number.

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Data availability

The data that support the plots within this paper and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request. Source data are provided with this paper.

Code availability

All data are obtained from the experiments or from analytic formulae discussed in the manuscript. No special computer codes were used to generate the results reported in this paper.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Samsung Science and Technology Foundation (project no. SSTF-BA1502-05), National Research Foundation (grant no. 2020R1A2C3009299) and the Ministry of Science and ICT of Korea under ITRC programme (grant no. IITP-2019-2018-0-01402).

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Author notes

  1. Daeho Yang

    Present address: Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology, Samsung Electronics, Suwon, Gyeonggi-do, Korea

  2. Junki Kim

    Present address: SKKU Advanced Institute of Nano Technology, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, Korea

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics and Astronomy & Institute of Applied Physics, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea

    Daeho Yang, Seung-hoon Oh, Junseok Han, Gibeom Son, Jinuk Kim & Kyungwon An

  2. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA

    Junki Kim

  3. Department of Electrical Engineering, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Pohang, Korea

    Moonjoo Lee

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Contributions

D.Y. and K.A. conceived the experiment. D.Y. performed experiments with help from S.O., J.H. and G.S. D.Y. analysed the data and carried out theoretical investigations with help from J.U.K. K.A. supervised overall experimental and theoretical works. D.Y. and K.A. wrote the manuscript. All authors participated in discussions.

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Correspondence to Kyungwon An.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Peer review information Nature Photonics thanks Erik Gauger, Stefan Rotter and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Notes 1–12 and Figs. 1–6.

Source data

Source Data Fig. 1

Source data for Fig. 1 in the main text.

Source Data Fig. 2

Source data for Fig. 2 in the main text.

Source Data Fig. 3

Source data for Fig. 3 in the main text.

Source Data Fig. 4

Source data for Fig. 4 in the main text.

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Yang, D., Oh, Sh., Han, J. et al. Realization of superabsorption by time reversal of superradiance. Nat. Photonics 15, 272–276 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-021-00770-6

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