Researchers Create 100-Nanoantenna Metacrystal That Filters Light by Quantum Coherence
Updated
Updated · Nature.com · Jul 15
Researchers Create 100-Nanoantenna Metacrystal That Filters Light by Quantum Coherence
1 articles · Updated · Nature.com · Jul 15
Summary
A room-temperature plasmonic metacrystal built from 100 gold nanoantennas selectively transmits or suppresses multiphoton light depending on its second-order coherence, introducing allowed and forbidden quantum statistical bands.
Tests with 13 sources spanning g(2)(0)=1 to 3 showed allowed states passed unchanged, while forbidden inputs were pushed toward nearby allowed bands—for example 2.15 to 2.58 and 1.25 to 1.50.
The team said band behavior is set deterministically by structure: meta-atom size fixes accessible coherence values, while antenna number and orientation tune bandwidth; ordinary plasmonic beam splitters did not show the effect.
Measurements through the crystal depth found the bands remained stable in the paraxial near field, and extracted four-particle subsystems preserved the same transport behavior despite plasmonic losses.
The result points to ambient-condition platforms for coherence-sensitive photonics, with potential uses in solar-energy harvesting, optoelectronics and scalable many-body quantum technologies.