Researchers at NIST have conducted an experiment to study the time it takes for a single photon to cross a barrier using light created in pairs. By precisely timing the optical delays between the detection of the two photons, they were able to measure the propagation delay times for different dielectric stack configurations.
The study found that propagation delays can vary significantly depending on the presence or absence of surface modes on each end of the photonic bandgap structure. Super-luminal traversal times were observed to be highly sensitive to minimal changes in the dielectric stack, even changing from super- to sub-luminal regimes. A theoretical model was developed to explain these variations in terms of surface states.
The research also demonstrated single photon trapping by a surface mode in a 1D photonic bandgap and studied single-photon propagation through dielectric bandgaps. The study used both InAs quantum dots and parametric down-conversion sources as single-photon sources.
Source: https://www.nist.gov/programs-projects/single-photon-measurements-single-photon-tunneling
Keywords: Photon, Photonic, Tunneling
