Program

Creating Quantum Matter and Light with Cold Atoms coupled to Photonic Crystals

Darrick E. Chang, Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO), Castelldefels, Spain

Significant efforts have been made to interface cold atoms with micro- and nano-photonic systems in recent years. Originally, it was envisioned that the migration to these systems from free-space atomic ensemble or macroscopic cavity QED experiments could dramatically improve figures of merit and facilitate scalability in applications such as quantum informa- tion processing. However, there is a growing body of work pointing to an even more intriguing possibility, that nanophotonic systems can yield fundamentally new paradigms to manipulate quantum light-matter inter- actions, which do not have an obvious counterpart in macroscopic setups. Here, we will present a brief overview of the experimental state-of-the- art in interfacing cold atoms with nanophotonics. We will then introduce a "spin model" formalism that enables one to understand how atoms and light interact with each other in complex nanophotonic environments. This formalism can also be used to elucidate the new features contained in atom- nanophotonic interfaces as compared to previous platforms, such as cavity QED. Finally, we will apply this formalism in some simple scenarios to illustrate how atom-nanophotonic interfaces can be used to generate inter- esting quantum states of atoms and light.