Illustration of a chip-integrated photonic microresonator coupled to Rb vapor-phase atoms.
In a recent paper published in Optica, we demonstrate the strong interactions between a small number of vapor-phase Rb atoms and the mode of an integrated photonics microresonator, and show that signatures of interactions persist towards the single-atom, single-photon level. This platform is of potential interest due to its relative technological simplicity, as it consists of a standalone glass vapor cell bonded to a photonic integrated circuit microchip, and does not require significant physical infrastructure such as an ultra-high vacuum chamber or cryostat. Going forward, we hope to push this system towards the single-atom, single-photon strong coupling regime.
This work, which was also recently highlighted in Science ('Warming to quantum optics'), is a collaboration with the groups of Alexey Gorshkov and Paul Lett at JQI and several colleagues in the Microsystems and Nantechnology Division at NIST.