RB cell integrated hollow core waveguide devices for spectroscopy and quantum coherence applications

The motivation behind the current trend towards miniaturization of optical communication devices is to pursue robustness, efficiency, versatility, and low cost. Integrated optical devices for communication network are, therefore, very desirable. For instance, optical delay lines and optical data storage units can provide innovative solutions to the next generation of all-optical network which would greatly overcome the bandwidth and speed limitations of the current telecommunication network. The emergence of an integrated optical logic unit on the chip scale will be compatible with today's mass production in semiconductor industry and hence have the potential to be integrated in the future photonic circuit for all optical network.;Clearly, the debut of the on chip optical logic units would be a revolution for present opto-electronic based telecommunication network. Here, we propose a novel integrated optical device based on anti-resonant reflecting optical waveguide (ARROW). The confinement of light inside the low index medium in such a waveguide structure is coming from the high reflection coefficient from the multilayer structure around the core acting as a Bragg reflector. After taking all the fabrication reality into consideration, the design of this new type of waveguide is optimized. A type of new waveguide called self-aligned pedestal (SAP) waveguides was developed and the loss value was improved more than twice compared to the previous waveguides. Effective light guiding is achieved in this hollow core ARROW waveguide, which is then used as the platform to integrate Rb vapor cell on top for spectroscopy and quantum optics experiments based on a quantum coherence effect called electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT).;Aside from being able to guide light into and out of the Rb cell integrated waveguide, we demonstrated the first linear and nonlinear Rb spectroscopy on a chip. The optical density is comparable with the commercially available Rb cell at higher temperatures. Moreover, electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) is realized on this self-contained Rb cell integrated ARROW chip which has great potential for applications as optical buffers, optical data storage, and optical switching. Based on this EIT effect, we demonstrated the first slow light experiment in atomic vapors on chip. The group velocity of the light pulse can be slowed down by a factor of 1200 as the world record with our Rb cell integrated device which opens a new direction for on-chip-scale optical logic unit devices.