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Directional and correlated optical emission from a waveguide-engineered molecule with local control

arXiv Quantum Physics
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Researchers demonstrated directional control of light emission from two quantum dots embedded 13 micrometers apart in a photonic crystal waveguide, achieving radiative coupling despite the 26-wavelength separation. By manipulating the relative driving phase, the team switched emission direction between left and right, creating an artificial molecule through dispersive dipole-dipole interactions that shift collective state energies. The system exhibited directional photon statistics under continuous driving, with single photons detected at one output port and photon pairs at the other, showcasing correlated quantum behavior. Pulsed excitation produced fully inverted emitters, enabling time-resolved measurements of correlated photon pairs, advancing understanding of multi-emitter quantum dynamics in waveguide QED platforms. This work presents a scalable approach to chiral quantum optics using non-chiral waveguides, offering potential for multi-emitter quantum networks and integrated photonic circuits.
Directional and correlated optical emission from a waveguide-engineered molecule with local control

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Quantum Physics arXiv:2604.06410 (quant-ph) [Submitted on 7 Apr 2026] Title:Directional and correlated optical emission from a waveguide-engineered molecule with local control Authors:Clara Henke, Thomas Wilkens Sandø, Vasiliki Angelopoulou, Lena Maria Hansen, Alexey Tiranov, Oliver August Dall'Alba Sandberg, Zhe Liu, Leonardo Midolo, Nikolai Bart, Arne Ludwig, Anders Søndberg Sørensen, Peter Lodahl, Cornelis Jacobus van Diepen View a PDF of the paper titled Directional and correlated optical emission from a waveguide-engineered molecule with local control, by Clara Henke and 11 other authors View PDF Abstract:Radiative coupling between quantum emitters leads to a range of spectacular emission phenomena. Dicke studied the foundations of collectively enhanced and suppressed decay, commonly referred to as super- and subradiance. Collective effects can further result in directionality of the emission, thus offering a complimentary implementation of chiral quantum optics. Waveguide quantum electrodynamics (QED) allows coupling between spatially separated emitters, enabling selective driving. In this work, we control the emission direction for a pair of quantum dots embedded in a bidirectional photonic crystal waveguide offering independent electrical tuning. Notably the emitters are 13 \micro m apart, which corresponds to 26 effective wavelengths, but are nevertheless radiatively coupled. The directionality arises from a dispersive dipole-dipole interaction, which shifts the energy of the collective states, so that the emitter pair effectively forms an artificial molecule. We show that the emission direction can be switched from left- to rightwards by manipulating the relative driving phase while collectively exciting the emitters. In addition, we observe directional photon statistics under continuous driving, with, for example, single photons detected on one output port, and photon pairs on the other. With pulsed excitation, both emitters are fully inverted and correlated photon pairs are observed in time-resolved intensity correlation measurements. This work demonstrates a novel implementation of chiral quantum optics using quantum dots coupled via a non-chiral waveguide, and reports key steps for scaling up as a multi-emitter waveguide QED platform. Comments: Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph); Optics (physics.optics) Cite as: arXiv:2604.06410 [quant-ph] (or arXiv:2604.06410v1 [quant-ph] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2604.06410 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration) Submission history From: Cornelis Jacobus Van Diepen [view email] [v1] Tue, 7 Apr 2026 19:46:52 UTC (4,903 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled Directional and correlated optical emission from a waveguide-engineered molecule with local control, by Clara Henke and 11 other authorsView PDFTeX Source view license Current browse context: quant-ph new | recent | 2026-04 Change to browse by: physics physics.optics References & Citations INSPIRE HEP NASA ADSGoogle Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Loading... BibTeX formatted citation × loading... Data provided by: Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub (What is DagsHub?) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate (What is Replicate?) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces (What is Spaces?) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI (What is TXYZ.AI?) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower (What are Influence Flowers?) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender (What is CORE?) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs. Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)

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Source: arXiv Quantum Physics