A key obstacle for any quantum photonic technology is the lack of scalability. While fundamental discoveries in quantum optics and their technological applications were initially made by researchers working with single atoms or single solid-state defects, scaling those systems to multiple nodes for studying emergent many-body phenomena remains an outstanding hurdle. We aim to solve this problem using broad quantum emitters, which while often inferior to narrow emitters in terms of quantum properties, provide a clear path to scalability. In this talk, I will present our theoretical and experimental efforts in cavity nonlinear nanophotonics with excitons in atomically thin 2D materials [1], specifically transition metal dichalcogenides and solution-processed quantum dots [2]. By confining both light and matter in the wavelength scale, we aim to reach the nonlinear regime, where single photons start repelling each other. I will also elaborate on the possibility of scaling this platform to multiple single photon quantum nodes with the goal of creating a correlated quantum fluid of light.
[1] A. Ryou, D. Rosser, A. Saxena, T. Fryett, and A. Majumdar, "Strong photon antibunching in weakly nonlinear two-dimensional exciton-polaritons," Physical Review B, vol. 97, p. 235307, 06/11/ 2018.
[2] Y. Chen, A. Ryou, M. R. Friedfeld, T. Fryett, J. Whitehead, B. M. Cossairt, and A. Majumdar, "Deterministic Positioning of Colloidal Quantum Dots on Silicon Nitride Nanobeam Cavities," Nano Letters, vol. 18, pp. 6404-6410, 2018/10/10 2018.