Optical feedback-enhanced photon entanglement from a biexciton cascade.

In a solid-state platform for quantum information science, the biexciton cascade is an important source of entangled photons. However, the entanglement is usually reduced considerably by the fine-structure splitting of the exciton levels. We show how to counteract this loss of entanglement by applying optical feedback. Substantial control and enhancement of photon entanglement can be achieved by coherently feeding back a part of the emitted signal, e.g., by a mirror, and by tuning the feedback phase and delay time. We present full quantum-mechanical calculations, which include the external photon mode continuum, and discuss the mechanisms leading to the above effects.

Tailoring magnetic dipole emission with plasmonic split-ring resonators.

We numerically explore the emission behavior of magnetic dipole emitters located next to resonant plasmonic split-ring resonators (SRRs), which are well known for their large magnetic moment at their fundamental resonance in the near infrared. Our results are compared to the situation for electric dipole emitters, where the SRR can be described by solely its electric dipole moment. We show that a similar approach in the case of magnetic dipole emitters is not sufficient, as the symmetry breaking due to the gap has to be taken into account. We demonstrate how retardation between the emitter and the SRR can be used as an additional degree of freedom to manipulate the emission spectrum. Our concept will pave the road towards efficient plasmonic antennas for magnetic dipole emitters.

Large-area 3D chiral plasmonic structures.

We manufacture large-area plasmonic structures featuring 3-dimensional chirality by colloidal nanohole lithography. By varying the polar rotating speed of the samples during gold evaporation, we can fabricate spiral-type ramp nanostructures. The optical properties show chiroptical resonances in the 100 to 400 THz frequency region (750 to 3000 nm), with circular dichroism values of up to 13%. Our method offers a simple low-cost manufacturing method of cm(2)-sized chiral plasmonic templates for chiroptical applications such as stereochemical enantiomer sensors.