Quantum interferences with nanostructured metamaterials

• Main Author: Altuzarra, Charles
• Other Authors: Soci Cesare
• Format: Theses and Dissertations
• Language: English
• Published: 2018
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/73272
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The subject of this thesis is focused on the investigation of interactions between quantum states of light and nanostructured metamaterials. Hence, producing the results shown within this manuscript required both an expertise in quantum optical alignments and nanofabrication of metamaterials. To be more specific, the acquired expertise in quantum optical alignment was portrayed by building a heralded single photon source, which is a source for hich at one point in space along the optical path there is only one photon at a time. In addition. an alignment of higher complexity was conducted to obtain an entangled photon pair source for which two photons of a pair may be separated in space, but by virtue of measuring the polarization state one ofthe photons of the pair, the polarization state of the other photon is defined 'nonlocally . Fabricating the metamaterials constitutes the other type of expe1tise acquired during this thesis. Nanofabrication is made possible through different techniques v,thich either have to do vvith adding material or removing material from a substrate. Moreover, pm1 ofthe fabrication process requires numerical simulations and optical characterizations of nanostructures. Once the quantum sources were built and the metamaterials were fabricated, we studied how single photons in the form of waves can interfere in optical interferometers in such a way to be fully absorbed by plasmonic metamaterials. In a similar manner. we compared the absorption properties of non-interfering single photon particles with the absorption properties of interfering single photon waves. These results were produced by virtue of pre-selective and post-selective measurements for a quantum eraser interferometer. And, by extension, the first quantum ultrathin metamaterial 'flat-lens' for single photons is demonstrated in the fom1 of a 'Young's N-slit' experiment. The results show that we super-oscillate a single photon to focus past the Abbe diffraction-limit.