Research Projects

The probability of spontaneous photon emission is not an inherent property of an emitter, but can be controlled and enhanced using nanoscale heterogeneous materials. This proposal focuses on radiative decay of a photon emitter in the presence of interacting matter and the special case of non-Markovian interactions of an emitter with surrounding matter. Understanding non-Markovian behavior becomes essential when studying two interacting quantum systems, which cannot be treated as a memory-less bath. With the advent of single-photon quantum applications in computing and communication, the Markovian approximations may become increasingly unreliable. This work specifically considers photon emission and interactions of an emitter with surrounding matter. The authors have identified two anomalies related to strong coupling of emitters and plasmonic metal structures and suggest appropriate modifications in the evaluations of radiative and non-radiative parts of the decay. The methods in evaluating expected values of radiative decay rates, non-radiative decay rates, and quantum efficiencies in a non-Markovian setting may be extended to study other parameters such as quantum coherence and entanglement entropy. This ability to model and design optimal devices can help increase the efficiency of quantum operations and reduce errors or losses in computing and communication due to decoherence.