Epsilon-near-zero plasmonic nanowaveguides to achieve efficient resonance energy transfer and quantum entanglement

The efficient entanglement and strong resonance energy transfer between optical dipole emitters randomly distributed in a photonic system over extended time periods and long distances remain a key challenge. The main reasons are the extremely weak dipole-dipole interactions, decoherence, and dephasing between the emitters caused by radiative and nonradiative losses. We tackle this problem by proposing a practical plasmonic waveguide system to engineer both the temporal (entanglement) and spatial (resonance energy transfer and superradiance) coherent emission dynamics by an ensemble of emitters. The proposed nanoscale plasmonic waveguide system, that exhibits an effective epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) response, can simultaneously achieve the efficient inter-emitter entanglement and large enhancement of resonance energy transfer in elongated distances, long time scales, and, even more importantly, independent of the emitters’ nanoscale positions [Y. Li, A. Nemilentsau, and C. Argyropoulos, “Resonance Energy Transfer and Quantum Entanglement Mediated by Epsilon-Near-Zero and Other Plasmonic Waveguide Systems,” Nanoscale 11, 14635, 2019]. Our presented results are expected to be useful for the future quantum communication and information plasmonic-based nanodevices.