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  • Open Access

Energy transfer between localized emitters in photonic cavities from first principles

Swarnabha Chattaraj1,* and Giulia Galli1,2,3,†

  • *Contact author: schattaraj@anl.gov
  • †Contact author: gagalli@uchicago.edu
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Phys. Rev. Research 7, 033229 – Published 9 September, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/8h8j-b79r

Abstract

Radiative and nonradiative resonant couplings between defects are ubiquitous phenomena in photonic devices used in classical and quantum information technology applications. In this work, we present a first-principles approach to enable quantitative predictions of the energy transfer between defects in photonic cavities, beyond the dipole-dipole approximation and including the many-body nature of the electronic states. As an example, we discuss the energy transfer from a dipolelike emitter to an F center in MgO in a spherical cavity. We show that the cavity can be used to controllably enhance or suppress specific spin-flip and spin-conserving transitions. Specifically, we predict that an ∼10–100 enhancement in the resonant energy transfer rate can be gained in the case of the F center in MgO at ∼10 nm distances from a dipolar source, using rather moderate cavity with quality factor Q ∼ 400. We also show that a similar suppression in the transfer rate can be achieved by off-tuning the cavity resonance relative to the emitter transition energy. The framework presented here is general and readily applicable to a wide range of devices where localized emitters are embedded in microspheres, core-shell nanoparticles, and dielectric Mie resonators. Hence, our approach paves the way to predict how to control energy transfer in quantum memories and in ultrahigh-density optical memories, and in a variety of quantum information platforms.

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Phys. Rev. Research 7, 033229– Published 9 September, 2025
  • Received 18 May 2025
  • Accepted 11 August 2025
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