- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine

Physical Review Research

Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Open Access

Resonant energy transfer and collectively driven emitters in waveguide QED

Cornelis Jacobus van Diepen1,*,†, Vasiliki Angelopoulou1,*, Oliver August Dall'Alba Sandberg1, Alexey Tiranov1,‡, Ying Wang1, Sven Scholz2, Arne Ludwig2, Anders Søndberg Sørensen1, and Peter Lodahl1,§

  • 1Center for Hybrid Quantum Networks (Hy-Q), Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Blegdamsvej 17, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark
  • 2Lehrstuhl für Angewandte Festkörperphysik, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universitätsstraße 150, 44801 Bochum, Germany

  • *These authors contributed equally to this work.
  • †Contact author: cjvandiepen@gmail.com
  • ‡Present address: Chimie ParisTech, Université PSL, CNRS, Institut de Recherche de Chimie Paris, 75005 Paris, France.
  • §Contact author: lodahl@nbi.ku.dk
PDF

Phys. Rev. Research 7, 033169 – Published 20 August, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/mrll-mbwd

Abstract

Waveguide quantum electrodynamics (QED) has opened a new frontier in quantum optics, which enables the radiative coupling of distantly located emitters via the spatially extended waveguide mode. This coupling leads to modified emission dynamics and previous work has reported the observation of increased intensity correlations (an antidip) when probing the resonance response of multiple emitters. However, the interference between independent emitters has been shown to lead to a similar response. Here, we directly observe resonant energy transfer between two distant quantum emitters by recording an antidip in the intensity correlations, g(2)(τ), while driving only one of the emitters. Under the condition that only a single emitter is driven, the antidip in photon coincidences is a distinctive signature of emitter-emitter coupling, which enables the transfer of energy from the driven to the undriven emitter. Interestingly, the observed mechanism is a long-range and waveguide-engineered version of resonant Förster transfer, which is responsible for the transport of energy between chlorophylls in the photosynthesis. Building on the established coupling, we demonstrate collective driving of the coupled emitter pair. Specifically, we control the relative driving phase and amplitude of the emitters and apply this collective excitation scheme to selectively populate the long-lived subradiant state. This results in suppressed emission, i.e., the peculiar situation where driving two emitters as opposed to one effectively reduces the probability of photon emission. Our work presents novel emission regimes and excitation schemes for a multiemitter waveguide QED system. These can be exploited to deterministically generate emitter-emitter entanglement and advanced photonic states providing robustness against losses for photonic quantum computation and quantum communication.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Corrections

25 September, 2025

Correction: A formatting error introduced during the production process resulted in Fig. 1(d) to be displayed incorrectly and has been fixed.

Article Text

References (41)

  1. E. M. Purcell, Spontaneous emission probabilities at radio frequencies, Phys. Rev. 69, 674 (1946).
  2. R. H. Dicke, Coherence in spontaneous radiation processes, Phys. Rev. 93, 99 (1954).
  3. M. Gross and S. Haroche, Superradiance: An essay on the theory of collective spontaneous emission, Phys. Rep. 93, 301 (1982).
  4. A. S. Sheremet, M. I. Petrov, I. V. Iorsh, A. V. Poshakinskiy, and A. N. Poddubny, Waveguide quantum electrodynamics: Collective radiance and photon-photon correlations, Rev. Mod. Phys. 95, 015002 (2023).
  5. P. Lodahl, S. Mahmoodian, and S. Stobbe, Interfacing single photons and single quantum dots with photonic nanostructures, Rev. Mod. Phys. 87, 347 (2015).
  6. M. Zanner, T. Orell, C. M. F. Schneider, R. Albert, S. Oleschko, M. L. Juan, M. Silveri, and G. Kirchmair, Coherent control of a multi-qubit dark state in waveguide quantum electrodynamics, Nat. Phys. 18, 538 (2022).
  7. B. Kannan, M. J. Ruckriegel, D. L. Campbell, A. F. Kockum, J. Braumüller, D. K. Kim, M. Kjaergaard, P. Krantz, A. Melville, B. M. Niedzielski, A. Vepsäläinen, R. Winik, J. L. Yoder, F. Nori, T. P. Orlando, S. Gustavsson, and W. D. Oliver, Waveguide quantum electrodynamics with superconducting artificial giant atoms, Nature (London) 583, 775 (2020).
  8. J. O'Sullivan, K. Reuer, A. Grigorev, X. Dai, A. Hernández-Antón, M. H. Muñoz-Arias, C. Hellings, A. Flasby, D. C. Zanuz, J.-C. Besse, A. Blais, D. Malz, C. Eichler, and A. Wallraff, Deterministic generation of two-dimensional multi-photon cluster states, Nat. Commun. 16, 5505 (2025).
  9. A. Tiranov, V. Angelopoulou, C. J. van Diepen, B. Schrinski, O. A. D. Sandberg, Y. Wang, L. Midolo, S. Scholz, A. D. Wieck, A. Ludwig, and P. Lodahl, Collective super- and subradiant dynamics between distant optical quantum emitters, Science 379, 389 (2023).
  10. A. Juan-Delgado, R. Esteban, Á. Nodar, J.-B. Trebbia, B. Lounis, and J. Aizpurua, Tailoring the statistics of light emitted from two interacting quantum emitters, Phys. Rev. Res. 6, 023207 (2024).
  11. M. Gullans, T. G. Tiecke, D. E. Chang, J. Feist, J. D. Thompson, J. I. Cirac, P. Zoller, and M. D. Lukin, Nanoplasmonic lattices for ultracold atoms, Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 235309 (2012).
  12. V. E. Elfving, S. Das, and A. S. Sørensen, Enhancing quantum transduction via long-range waveguide-mediated interactions between quantum emitters, Phys. Rev. A 100, 053843 (2019).
  13. S. E. Economou, N. Lindner, and T. Rudolph, Optically generated 2-dimensional photonic cluster state from coupled quantum dots, Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 093601 (2010).
  14. A. González-Tudela, V. Paulisch, D. E. Chang, H. J. Kimble, and J. I. Cirac, Deterministic generation of arbitrary photonic states assisted by dissipation, Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 163603 (2015).
  15. O. Rubies-Bigorda, S. J. Masson, S. F. Yelin, and A. Asenjo-Garcia, Deterministic generation of photonic entangled states using decoherence-free subspaces, Phys. Rev. Lett. 134, 213603 (2025).
  16. H. J. Kimble, The quantum internet, Nature (London) 453, 1023 (2008).
  17. S. Wehner, D. Elkouss, and R. Hanson, Quantum internet: A vision for the road ahead, Science 362, 303 (2018).
  18. R. Raussendorf and H. J. Briegel, A one-way quantum computer, Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 5188 (2001).
  19. H. J. Kimble, M. Dagenais, and L. Mandel, Photon antibunching in resonance fluorescence, Phys. Rev. Lett. 39, 691 (1977).
  20. A. Sipahigil, R. E. Evans, D. D. Sukachev, M. J. Burek, J. Borregaard, M. K. Bhaskar, C. T. Nguyen, J. L. Pacheco, H. A. Atikian, C. Meuwly, R. M. Camacho, F. Jelezko, E. Bielejec, H. Park, M. Lončar, and M. D. Lukin, An integrated diamond nanophotonics platform for quantum-optical networks, Science 354, 847 (2016).
  21. J.-H. Kim, S. Aghaeimeibodi, C. J. K. Richardson, R. P. Leavitt, and E. Waks, Super-radiant emission from quantum dots in a nanophotonic waveguide, Nano Lett. 18, 4734 (2018).
  22. J. Q. Grim, A. S. Bracker, M. Zalalutdinov, S. G. Carter, A. C. Kozen, M. Kim, C. S. Kim, J. T. Mlack, M. Yakes, B. Lee, and D. Gammon, Scalable in operando strain tuning in nanophotonic waveguides enabling three-quantum-dot superradiance, Nat. Mater. 18, 963 (2019).
  23. D. Hallett, J. Wiercinski, L. Hallacy, S. Sheldon, R. Dost, N. Martin, A. Fenzl, I. Farrer, A. Verma, M. Cygorek, E. M. Gauger, M. S. Skolnick, and L. R. Wilson, Controlling cooperative emission and superradiance in waveguide-coupled quantum dots, arXiv:2410.17890.
  24. Z. X. Koong, M. Cygorek, E. Scerri, T. S. Santana, S. I. Park, J. D. Song, E. M. Gauger, and B. D. Gerardot, Coherence in cooperative photon emission from indistinguishable quantum emitters, Sci. Adv. 8, eabm8171 (2022).
  25. M. Cygorek, E. D. Scerri, T. S. Santana, Z. X. Koong, B. D. Gerardot, and E. M. Gauger, Signatures of cooperative emission in photon coincidence: Superradiance versus measurement-induced cooperativity, Phys. Rev. A 107, 023718 (2023).
  26. K.-Y. Kim, J. H. Lee, W. B. Jeon, D. H. Park, S. I. Park, J. D. Song, C. Lee, and J.-H. Kim, Cavity-mediated collective emission from steady-state subradiance, Nat. Commun. 16, 6346 (2025).
  27. M. Arcari, I. Söllner, A. Javadi, S. L. Hansen, S. Mahmoodian, J. Liu, H. Thyrrestrup, E. H. Lee, J. D. Song, S. Stobbe, and P. Lodahl, Near-unity coupling efficiency of a quantum emitter to a photonic crystal waveguide, Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 093603 (2014).
  28. A. Javadi, S. Mahmoodian, I. Söllner, and P. Lodahl, Numerical modeling of the coupling efficiency of single quantum emitters in photonic-crystal waveguides, J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 35, 514 (2018).
  29. B. Misra and E. C. G. Sudarshan, The Zeno's paradox in quantum theory, J. Math. Phys. 18, 756 (1977).
  30. A. González-Tudela, D. Martin-Cano, E. Moreno, L. Martin-Moreno, C. Tejedor, and F. J. Garcia-Vidal, Entanglement of two qubits mediated by one-dimensional plasmonic waveguides, Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 020501 (2011).
  31. O. A. D. Sandberg et al. (unpublished).
  32. R. J. Warburton, Single spins in self-assembled quantum dots, Nat. Mater. 12, 483 (2013).
  33. J.-B. Trebbia, Q. Deplano, P. Tamarat, and B. Lounis, Tailoring the superradiant and subradiant nature of two coherently coupled quantum emitters, Nat. Commun. 13, 2962 (2022).
  34. V. Paulisch, H. J. Kimble, and A. González-Tudela, Universal quantum computation in waveguide QED using decoherence free subspaces, New J. Phys. 18, 043041 (2016).
  35. G. Ferioli, A. Glicenstein, L. Henriet, I. Ferrier-Barbut, and A. Browaeys, Storage and release of subradiant excitations in a dense atomic cloud, Phys. Rev. X 11, 021031 (2021).
  36. J. Rui, D. Wei, A. Rubio-Abadal, S. Hollerith, J. Zeiher, D. M. Stamper-Kurn, C. Gross, and I. Bloch, A subradiant optical mirror formed by a single structured atomic layer, Nature (London) 583, 369 (2020).
  37. F. Reiter, M. J. Kastoryano, and A. S. Sørensen, Driving two atoms in an optical cavity into an entangled steady state using engineered decay, New J. Phys. 14, 053022 (2012).
  38. D. Dzsotjan, A. S. Sørensen, and M. Fleischhauer, Quantum emitters coupled to surface plasmons of a nanowire: A Green's function approach, Phys. Rev. B 82, 075427 (2010).
  39. A. Albrecht, L. Henriet, A. Asenjo-Garcia, P. B. Dieterle, O. Painter, and D. E. Chang, Subradiant states of quantum bits coupled to a one-dimensional waveguide, New J. Phys. 21, 025003 (2019).
  40. M. Lax, Formal theory of quantum fluctuations from a driven state, Phys. Rev. 129, 2342 (1963).
  41. E. B. Flagg, A. Muller, J. W. Robertson, S. Founta, D. G. Deppe, M. Xiao, W. Ma, G. J. Salamo, and C. K. Shih, Resonantly driven coherent oscillations in a solid-state quantum emitter, Nat. Phys. 5, 203 (2009).

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. Research 7, 033169– Published 20 August, 2025
  • Received 25 February 2025
  • Accepted 14 July 2025
  • Corrected 25 September 2025
Crossmark - Check for updates button
Creative Commons Logo

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation