Quantum and Many Body Physics Enabled by Advanced Semiconductor Nanotechnology

Lead Research Organisation: University of Sheffield
Department Name: Physics and Astronomy

Abstract

Light emitting semiconductor materials and devices dominate many aspects of everyday life. Their influence is all pervasive providing the sources which enable the internet, large area displays, room and street lighting to give just a few examples. Their existence relies on the high quality semiconductor structures which may be prepared by advanced crystal growth and sophisticated nanofabrication. Our proposal aims to capitalise on the advanced growth and fabrication to achieve similar advances in the quantum world where often counter-intuitive behaviour is governed solely by the laws of quantum mechanics.
Our overall aim is to explore the behaviour of nano-devices operating in regimes where fundamentally new types of quantum-photonic phenomena occur, with potential to underpin the next generation of quantum technologies. We focus on two complementary systems: III-V semiconductors with their highly perfect crystal lattices, proven ability to emit photons one by one and long coherence quantum states, and atomically-thin graphene-like two dimensional (2D) semiconductors enabling new band structures, stable electron-hole bound states (excitons) and easy integration with patterned structures. The combination of the two material systems is powerful enabling phenomena ranging from the single photon level up to dense many-particle states where interactions dominate. A significant part of our programme focusses on on-chip geometries, enabling scale-up as likely required for applications.
The semiconductor systems we employ interact strongly with photons; we will achieve interactions between photons which normally do not interact. We will gain entry into the regime of highly non-linear cavity quantum electrodynamics. Excitons (coupled electron-hole pairs) and photons interact strongly, enabling ladders of energy levels leading to on-chip production of few photon states. By coupling cavities together, we will aim for highly correlated states of photons. These advances are likely to be important components of photonic quantum processors and quantum communication systems.
In similar structures, we access regimes of high density where electrons and holes condense into highly populated states (condensates). We aim to answer long-standing fundamental questions about the types of phase transitions that can occur in equilibrium systems and in out-of-equilibrium ones which have loss balanced by gain. We will also study condensate systems up to high temperatures, potentially in excess of 100K, and of the mechanisms underlying phase transitions to condensed states. The condensed state systems, besides their fundamental interest, also have potential as new forms of miniature coherent light sources.
Nanofabrication will play a vital role enabling confinement of light on sub-wavelength length scales and fabrication of cavities for photons such that they have very long lifetimes before escaping. The ability to place high quality emitters within III-V nanophotonic structures will receive enhancement and potential world lead from a crystal growth machine we have recently commissioned, specially designed for this purpose, funded by the UK Quantum Technologies programme. Similar impact is expected from our ability to prepare 2D heterostructures (atomically thin layers of two separate materials placed one on top of the other) under conditions of ultrahigh vacuum free from contamination, enabling realisation of bound electron-hole pair states of very long lifetime, the route to condensation to high density states. The easy integration of 2D heterostructures with patterned photonic structures furthermore enables nonlinear and quantum phenomena to be studied, including in topological structures where light flow is immune to scattering by defects.
Taken all together we have the ingredients in place to achieve ground-breaking advances in fundamental quantum photonics with considerable potential to underpin next generations of quantum technologies.
 
Title Making quantum light with quantum dots 
Description Animation video to show how quantum dots can be used for generation of quantum light 
Type Of Art Film/Video/Animation 
Year Produced 2022 
Impact 17 K views, 6.5 K subscribers to channel "Quantum Light University of Sheffield" 
URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=117&v=fqSUDLTjaCA&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fww...
 
Title Twistronics: building moiré superlattices from 2D materials 
Description Animation on electronic properties of 2D materials. When ultrathin two-dimensional materials are stacked together to build designer nanomaterials, they can be twisted relative to one another, such that the atoms in each layer line up differently. This twisting, which is not possible in most present-day thin film nanotechnology, can lead to enormous changes of the material properties. The great potential on offer has given rise to a new field of scientific research termed "twistronics", which seeks to discover new functionality by taking two-dimensional materials and adding a twist. 
Type Of Art Film/Video/Animation 
Year Produced 2023 
Impact >6.2 k views on youtube channel. 
URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuwuyzHhrho
 
Description 1) Hybridisation of 2D excitons and photons in microresonators enables strong effective photon-photon interactions. For quantum optical signal processing with photon qubit strong interactions are required for manipulating the state (phase) of one photon with another. We report that one photon may induce a phase shift up to 30 mRad in another photon, which is very promising for constructing quantum gates in quantum computing architectures if single photon phase shift devices are cascaded in a special way. The scalability of such devices is ensured by the 2D excitonic natures in semiconductor nanostructures.
2) Quantum dots can be coupled together coherently within waveguides to produce super-radiant emission in which the lifetime is shorter than for individual dots. This coherent coupling of two quantum dots is the first step in the road map towards building large networks of coupled dots for observing many-body physics. The step was made possible by very advanced nanofabrication methods that enabled separate tuning of two dots on the same chip, thus enabling us to tune the dots to resonance with each other.
3) We have demonstrated that chiral effects can be enhanced by using glide-plane nano-photonic waveguides. The goal here is to demonstrate that the direction of the emission from a quantum dot can be linked to the spin, as the basis for quantum spin networks. In previous work we demonstrated high directionality, but the coupling between the waveguide mode and the quantum emitter was not strong enough. The use of the glide-plane waveguide enhances the coupling through the Purcell effect in the slow light region. We have shown a world-best Purcell effect of 5 for a chiral dot, and are working to increase this further in the next generation devices.
Exploitation Route We anticipate that companies working on realisation of quantum optical computes (for example, Aegiq, Xanadu, PsiQuantum to name just a few) may benefit from our discoveries. Currently, photonic quantum architectures rely on two photon interferences, which enables realisation of probabilistic quantum gates. Introducing scalable nonlinear elements enabling strong photon-photon interactions and hence quantum non-demoliation measurements or deterministic photon entanglement, may possibly result in more advance and functional quantum photonic architecture, which is more efficient and consume much less resources. More research on scalability and integration of hybrid exciton-photonic devices in photonic circuits is required to push such a realisation forward.
Sectors Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software)

Electronics

 
Title Development of tunable open cavity setup where light can be confined to a scale of 1 micrometer. 
Description The open cavity setups consist of two mirrors controlled by nanopiezopositioners. These mirrors enable enable very strong polariton confinement in all three dimensions leading to realisation of single polariton nonlinearity 
Type Of Material Technology assay or reagent 
Year Produced 2021 
Provided To Others? No  
Impact This research tool has had only academic impact for now, enabling observation of single polariton nonlinearity (publication in Nature Photonics 2022). Potentially, it paves the way towards development of nonlinear quantum optical devices. 
 
Title Nonlinear optical experiment using UV ultrafast laser. Fabrication of grating in- and out-couplers 
Description To perform the nonlinear optical experiment we used 100 fs pulsed laser at 800 nm and rep rate of 80 MHz. It was further amplified by 10000 using Spitfire Spectra-Physics amplifier and then pulses were converted to 345 nm using optical parametric amplifier (TOPAS of Lightconversion). The GaN waveguide is excited resonantly using grating couplers and spectrum of light in energy and momentum space is monitored as a function of power from the other outcoupler. 
Type Of Material Improvements to research infrastructure 
Year Produced 2019 
Provided To Others? No  
Impact The research method allows investugate spatio-temporal soliton dynamics in various planar waveguide systems. 
 
Title pump-probe experiments on observation of parametrically stimulated polariton blockade 
Description We synchronised to pulsed lasers at different frequencies in order to observe stimulated scattering of pump polaritons to the lower and higher energy states in a micropillar. Employed pulsed lasers with different frequencies in order to observe cross-phase-modulation between single photons. 
Type Of Material Technology assay or reagent 
Year Produced 2019 
Provided To Others? No  
Impact No impact yet 
 
Title Data for Nonlinear Rydberg exciton-polaritons in Cu2O microcavities 
Description Experimental data for the Light: Science & Applications article "Nonlinear Rydberg exciton-polaritons in Cu2O microcavities" 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2024 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://orda.shef.ac.uk/articles/dataset/Data_for_Nonlinear_Rydberg_exciton-polaritons_in_Cu2O_micro...
 
Title Data for Nonlinear Rydberg exciton-polaritons in Cu2O microcavities 
Description Experimental data for the Light: Science & Applications article "Nonlinear Rydberg exciton-polaritons in Cu2O microcavities" 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2024 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://orda.shef.ac.uk/articles/dataset/Data_for_Nonlinear_Rydberg_exciton-polaritons_in_Cu2O_micro...
 
Title Dataset for Few-photon all-optical phase rotation in a quantum-well micropillar cavity 
Description Dataset for Few-photon all-optical phase rotation in a quantum-well micropillar cavity 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2022 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://figshare.shef.ac.uk/articles/dataset/Dataset_for_Few-photon_all-optical_phase_rotation_in_a_...
 
Title Dataset for Observation of Zitterbewegung in photonic microcavities 
Description Dataset for Observation of Zitterbewegung in photonic microcavities 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2023 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://figshare.shef.ac.uk/articles/dataset/Dataset_for_Observation_of_Zitterbewegung_in_photonic_m...
 
Title Raw Data for: Spin-order-dependent magneto-elastic coupling in two dimensional antiferromagnetic MnPSe3 observed through Raman spectroscopy 
Description Layered antiferromagnetic materials have recently emerged as an intriguing subset of the two-dimensional family providing a highly accessible regime with prospects for layer-number-dependent magnetism. Furthermore, transition metal phosphorus trichalcogenides, MPX3 (M= transition metal; X= chalcogen) provide a platform on which to investigate fundamental interactions between magnetic and lattice degrees of freedom and further explore the developing fields of spintronics and magnonics. Here, we use a combination of temperature dependent Raman spectroscopy and density functional theory to explore magnetic-ordering-dependent interactions between the manganese spin degree of freedom and lattice vibrations of the non-magnetic sub-lattice via a Kramers-Anderson super-exchange pathway in both bulk, and few-layer, manganese phosphorus triselenide (MnPSe3). We observe a nonlinear temperature dependent shift of phonon modes predominantly associated with the non-magnetic sub-lattice, revealing their non-trivial spin-phonon coupling below the N'eel temperature at 74 K, allowing us to extract mode-specific spin-phonon coupling constants. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2023 
Provided To Others? Yes  
URL https://orda.shef.ac.uk/articles/dataset/Raw_Data_for_Spin-order-dependent_magneto-elastic_coupling_...
 
Description Collaboration with Prof. D Snoke from the University of Pittsburg, USA 
Organisation Pittsburg State University
Country United States 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution Optical measurements of polariton propagation, condensation and optical parametric scattering in microcavity samples with long lifetime >100 ps.
Collaborator Contribution Supply of high quality GaAs-based microcavity sample with low photonic spatial disorder and long polariton lifetime to realise analogue black hole using polariton superfluids
Impact NA
Start Year 2022
 
Description Collaboration with the group of Nicolas Gradjean at EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland to study nonlinear polariton phases in GaN polariton slab waveguides 
Organisation Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL)
Country Switzerland 
Sector Public 
PI Contribution The nonlinear experiments on GaN waveguide polariton samples. Fabrication of in-couplers and out-couplers in GaN waveguides using electron-beam lithography.
Collaborator Contribution The Lausanne group supplied Sheffield group with high quality AlGaN waveguide samples with multiple GaN quantum wells, which were grown by MOCVD technique. General contribution in data analysis and interpretation.
Impact Observation of strong exciton-photon coupling and the resultant polaritons in GaN -based waveguides at high temperature up to 300 K. Observation of continuum generation in polariton waveguides at T up to 300 K. Observation of modulational polariton instabilities at T up to 300 K. Observation of non-linear diffraction.
Start Year 2018
 
Description Collaboration with the group of Prof. Gorbachev from Uni of Manchester and Graphene institute 
Organisation University of Manchester
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution The University of Sheffield is conducting investigation of light-matter interactions and novel many body photon, exciton and polariton phases in photonic structures with embedded 2D material heterostructures, which are fabricated in the group of Gorbachev
Collaborator Contribution The group of Prof. Gorbachev is working on fabrication of high quality gated heterostructures made of various monolayers of transition metal dichalcogenides , graphene and hBN. These structures are being made in ultra high vacuum or inert gas to avoid possible contamination and ensure the highest optical properties. High quality structures are essential for investigation of light-matter interactions and many body photon and polariton phases in photonic structures with embedded 2D material heterostructures. These optical studies are conducted at the University of Sheffield.
Impact NA
Start Year 2021
 
Description Collaboration with the theory group of Prof. Dmitry Sonyshkov from the Université Blaise Pascal, France 
Organisation Blaise Pascal University
Country France 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution We have initiated the experiment on the realisation of analogue black holes in semiconductor microcavities. We pumped our system with an optical vortex at high density, which realises supersonic/subsonic transition near the analogue black hole core.
Collaborator Contribution The group of Solnyshkov is providing the theoretical interpretation and modelling of the observed results.
Impact NA
Start Year 2023
 
Description Collaboration with the theory group of Prof. Oleksandr Kyriienko from the University of Exeter, UK 
Organisation University of Exeter
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution My group performed experiments on the observation of single photon phase shift in semiconductor polariton microcavities, when the linear polarisation of one polariton is observed to rotate due to present of another circularly polarised polariton arising from giant spin-dependent polariton-polariton interactions. The induced phase up to 3 mrad per particle is observed, which can be increased further by a factor of 10-100 in state of the art microcavities with smaller photonic confinement and higher Q-factor.
Collaborator Contribution The group of professor Kyriienko provided theoretical support for interpretation of the results on single photon phase shifts in polariton semiconductor micropillars with embedded 2D InGaAs quantum wells. In particular, they showed that using the state of the art polariton micropillars and cascading them into a chain connected by one-way propagating mode it should be possible to construct C-Phase quantum gate with a fidelity near 99%, which paves the way towards development of active and scalable photonic devices.
Impact 1. Few-photon all-optical phase rotation in a quantum-well micropillar cavity Tintu Kuriakose, Paul M. Walker, Toby Dowling, Oleksandr Kyriienko, Ivan A. Shelykh, Phillipe St-Jean, Nicola Carlon Zambon, Aristide Lemaître, Isabelle Sagnes, Luc Legratiet, Abdelmounaim Harouri, Sylvain Ravets, Maurice S. Skolnick, Alberto Amo, Jacqueline Bloch & Dmitry N. Krizhanovskii Nature Photonics volume 16, pages566-569 (2022) 2. Nonlinear Quantum Optics with Trion Polaritons in 2D Monolayers: Conventional and Unconventional Photon Blockade O. Kyriienko, D. N. Krizhanovskii, and I. A. Shelykh Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 197402 - Published 5 November 2020 3. Highly nonlinear trion-polaritons in a monolayer semiconductor RPA Emmanuele, M Sich, O Kyriienko, V Shahnazaryan, F Withers, ...Nature communications 11 (1), 3589 (2020)
Start Year 2018
 
Description Quantera collaboration 
Organisation National Center for Scientific Research (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique CNRS)
Department Laboratory for Photonics and Nanostructures
Country France 
Sector Public 
PI Contribution Measurements on SSH lattices and the ongoing experiments on the demonstration of single polariton nonlinearity.
Collaborator Contribution The group of J Bloch at CNRS, C2N, Paris provided us with high quality micropillar samples grown by MBE and processed using EBL and ICP etching.
Impact The observation of single photon phase shift in single micropillars. The construction of CPHASE gate. The Study of stimulated anti-bunching is still in progress
Start Year 2018
 
Title Code for Nonlinear Rydberg exciton-polaritons in Cu2O microcavities 
Description code for the Light: Science & Applications article "Nonlinear Rydberg exciton-polaritons in Cu2O microcavities" 
Type Of Technology Software 
Year Produced 2024 
URL https://orda.shef.ac.uk/articles/software/Code_for_Nonlinear_Rydberg_exciton-polaritons_in_Cu2O_micr...
 
Title Code for Nonlinear Rydberg exciton-polaritons in Cu2O microcavities 
Description code for the Light: Science & Applications article "Nonlinear Rydberg exciton-polaritons in Cu2O microcavities" 
Type Of Technology Software 
Year Produced 2024 
URL https://orda.shef.ac.uk/articles/software/Code_for_Nonlinear_Rydberg_exciton-polaritons_in_Cu2O_micr...
 
Description Animations - Quantum Light University of Sheffield YouTube channel 
Form Of Engagement Activity Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact Quantum Light University of Sheffield YouTube channel - 5.77k subscribers
Recent animations -
2023 - Twistronics: building moiré superlattices from 2D materials - 846 views (Jan 2023)
2022 - Making Quantum Light with Quantum Dots - 6.5k views (Jan 2023)
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022,2023
URL https://www.youtube.com/@quantumlightuniversityofsh5496
 
Description New Scientist Live event in London 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact Members of the LDSD group exhibited at the New Scientist Live event in London as part of the UK National Quantum Technology Program "Quantum City" exhibit. Over the 3 days, over 2500 people visited the Quantum City stand including many children from local schools. One of the group's exhibits has also been featured on New Scientist's social media channels where it has amassed 1.8m views (Jan 2023).
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://www.tiktok.com/@newscientist/video/7152188912838905093?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1