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Quantum interference in plasmonic circuits

Nature Nanotechnology volume 8, pages 719–722 (2013)Cite this article

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Abstract

Surface plasmon polaritons (plasmons) are a combination of light and a collective oscillation of the free electron plasma at metal/dielectric interfaces1. This interaction allows subwavelength confinement of light beyond the diffraction limit inherent to dielectric structures2. As a result, the intensity of the electromagnetic field is enhanced, with the possibility to increase the strength of the optical interactions between waveguides, light sources3,4,5,6 and detectors7,8. Plasmons maintain non-classical photon statistics9,10 and preserve entanglement upon transmission through thin, patterned metallic films11,12 or weakly confining waveguides13. For quantum applications3,14, it is essential that plasmons behave as indistinguishable quantum particles. Here we report on a quantum interference experiment in a nanoscale plasmonic circuit consisting of an on-chip plasmon beamsplitter with integrated superconducting single-photon detectors15 to allow efficient single plasmon detection16. We demonstrate a quantum-mechanical interaction between pairs of indistinguishable surface plasmons by observing Hong–Ou–Mandel (HOM) interference17, a hallmark non-classical interference effect that is the basis of linear optics-based quantum computation18. Our work shows that it is feasible to shrink quantum optical experiments to the nanoscale and offers a promising route towards subwavelength quantum optical networks.

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Figure 1: HOM interference.
Figure 2: Plasmon interference device and experimental set-up.
Figure 3: Photoresponse maps of a plasmonic beamsplitter.
Figure 4: Quantum interference measurements.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank K. Kuipers and E. Verhagen for discussions, M. Witteveen for help with earlier measurements and R. Zia for discussions and the mode solver code. This work was supported financially by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO/FOM) and the European Research Council.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kavli Institute of Nanoscience, Delft University of Technology, PO Box 5046, GA Delft, 2600, The Netherlands

    Reinier W. Heeres, Leo P. Kouwenhoven & Valery Zwiller

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  1. Reinier W. Heeres
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  2. Leo P. Kouwenhoven
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  3. Valery Zwiller
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Contributions

R.W.H. designed the experiment, fabricated the samples and performed the measurements and analysis. L.P.K. and V.Z. supervised the project. All authors contributed to the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Reinier W. Heeres.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Heeres, R., Kouwenhoven, L. & Zwiller, V. Quantum interference in plasmonic circuits. Nature Nanotech 8, 719–722 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2013.150

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