Multilayer Structures for Enhanced Light-matter Interactions : Classical Applications and Quantum Extensions

Abstract

The study of metamaterials, materials engineered with specific subwavelength nanostructures, has led to a significant advancement in light–matter interactions, with numerous applications in optics and photonics. These materials have fascinating optical properties that can be tailored to achieve desired values, making them useful in energy harvesting, sensing, and quantum computing. This thesis explores some of these interesting applications in both classical and quantum regimes, focusing on the resonance and epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) properties of these metamaterials and their coupling capabilities with emitters. The study begins with a discussion of a lithography-free metal-insulator-metal structure, its resonance properties, and its coupling capabilities with emitters. This simple structure led to the discussion of more complex polymer-based hyperbolic metamaterials with hyperbolic dispersion relations, high-k modes, ENZ properties, and coupling mechanisms with emitters. The study also covers cylindrical metamaterials fabricated using a self-rolling technique to obtain a 3D rolled-up multilayered waveguide. This cylindrical medium served as the basis to extend the study into the quantum regime, where the interaction of light with a single quantum system is weak and difficult to control. The thesis investigates the concept of such a cylindrical medium that can sustain the quantum properties of distantly spaced qubits, which is essential for practical implementations. It also introduces the fabrication of a rolled-up zero-index waveguide with ENZ properties, which illustrates the existence of unique extended modes that can be integrated with emitters to exhibit interesting light–matter interactions. The thesis concludes by investigating the ENZ properties of spherical nanoparticles using the effective medium approach to model the optical response of a multilayered sphere as an effective bulk spherical medium. The results of this study demonstrate the potential of planar multilayered structures, spherical nanoparticles, and cylindrical rolled-up waveguides for various classical and quantum applications, including optical filtering, radiative engineering, quantum communication, and superradiance.