Subwavelength Transportation of Light with Atomic Resonances

Abstract

We propose and investigate a new type of optical waveguide made by an array of atoms without involving conventional Bragg scattering or total internal reflection. A finite chain of atoms collectively coupled through their intrinsic resonance supports a propagating mode with minimal radiative loss when the array spacing $a$ is around 0.6${\lambda }_0/2\pi$ where ${\lambda }_0$ is the wavelength of the nearly resonant optical transition. We find that the transportation is robust with respect to position fluctuation and remains possible when the atoms are placed on a circle. Our result paves the way to implement the subwavelength transportation of light in integrated optical circuits with cold atoms.

6 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (3)

• Atom-Light Interactions in Photonic Crystals
• Subwavelength vacuum lattices and atom-atom interactions in photonic crystals
• Trapping of Ultracold Atoms in a Hollow-core Photonic Crystal Fiber

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Collective Dipole-Dipole Interactions in an Atomic Array
• Collective shift in resonant light scattering by a one-dimensional atomic chain
• Dicke superradiance in ordered lattices: dimensionality matters
• Geometric control of collective spontaneous emission
• Metasurface Holographic Optical Traps for Ultracold Atoms
• Fast and efficient preparation of 1D chains and dense cold atomic clouds
• Atomic spin-wave control and spin-dependent kicks with shaped subnanosecond pulses
• Suppression of coherent light scattering in a three-dimensional atomic array