Demonstration of Single Optical Plasmons with Programmable Wavefunction

Chun-Yuan Cheng^1,2*, Jen-Hung Yang^1,2, Yen-Ju Chen^1,2, Chih-Hsiang Wu^1,2, Chia-Nan Wang^1,2, Chih-Sung Chuu^1,2

¹Physics, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan
²Center for Quantum Technology, Hsinchu, Taiwan

* Presenter:Chun-Yuan Cheng, email:pbpavc@gmail.com

Analogous to how manipulating single photons enriches quantum optics and photonic quantum technologies, the comprehensive control of single optical plasmons brings new opportunities to quantum plasmonics and quantum information processing. For example, by designing the temporal wavefunctions of the guided single optical plasmons, one may create and dynamically control the multipartite entanglement among the solid-state qubits. However, despite the considerable progress in observing the quantum nature of the photon-surface-plasmon coupling, manipulating the single optical plasmons at the nanoscale still remains challenging and largely unexplored. Here we report the demonstration of single optical plasmons with programmable wavefunctions by dynamically controlling the photon-surface-plasmon coupling with single photons of prescribed waveform. The high-fidelity mapping of the wavefunctions from the single photons to single optical plasmons is manifested by the identical waveform and phase coherence time of the reemitted single photons. Our work thus paves the way to the exciting possibilities enabled by manipulating the single-photon-level light-matter interaction at the nanoscale.

Keywords: surface plasmon polariton, single photon