Seminarium Optyczne

Recently, the combination of slow light polaritons with the strong interactions between Rydberg atoms has emerged as a promising system for inducing a strong interaction between photons. Potential applications range from the implementation of phase gate for photons to single-photon sources, as well as the generation of strongly correlated states of photons. I present our theoretical and experimental studies of strongly interacting photons. I show that these interacting photons can be used to prepare exotic and non-classical states of light. In the regime of attractive interactions, we identify multiple two-polariton bound states, calculate their dispersion, and study the resulting scattering resonances. For three-polaritons, we study the influence of the three-body force on the bound states. Finally, we propose a method of engineering novel molecular-like interactions between polaritons leading to self-bound clusters made out of light.