Visible and ultraviolet integrated photonics for addressing atomic systems

Abstract

In the wake of many technological successes in integrated photonics based on silicon, attention has been given to applications in the visible light regime. This thesis is concerned with furthering the development of integrated photonics for controlling atomic systems, in particular individual trapped atomic ions. Nature places strict constraints on the frequency of the lasers used to address these atoms, typically spanning from the ultraviolet into the near infrared, and on the sensitivity to accidental perturbations from the control hardware. A platform for broadband integrated photonics, using amorphous aluminum oxide as the patterned material, is developed and exhibits suitable performance in the visible and ultraviolet. The waveguide loss and resonator quality factors are the best which have been reported to date, for wavelengths shorter than 500 nm. Next, a theory is developed which proposes laser frequency noise as a limiting factor for the extinction ratio of common integrated modulator designs. Understanding of this limit, and possible methods to suppress its effects, is important due to the fragile nature of single-photon-sensitive quantum systems. Finally, the application of technology developed here is applied to the analysis of trapped-ion-based optical atomic clocks. Justification for such integration of clocks and the impacts that result -- both good and bad -- are discussed from the perspective of a hardware designer.