Observation of Dicke cooperativity in magnetic interactions

Xinwei Li; Motoaki Bamba; Ning Yuan; Qi Zhang; Yage Zhao; Maolin Xiang; Kai Xu; Zuanming Jin; Wei Ren; Guohong Ma; Shixun Cao; Dmitry Turchinovich; Junichiro Kono

doi:10.1126/science.aat5162

Observation of Dicke cooperativity in magnetic interactions

Science. 2018 Aug 24;361(6404):794-797. doi: 10.1126/science.aat5162.

Authors

Xinwei Li¹, Motoaki Bamba^{2

3}, Ning Yuan⁴, Qi Zhang⁵, Yage Zhao⁶, Maolin Xiang⁴, Kai Xu⁴, Zuanming Jin⁴, Wei Ren⁴, Guohong Ma⁴, Shixun Cao⁷, Dmitry Turchinovich^{8

9}, Junichiro Kono^{10

11

12}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Rice University, Houston, TX 77005, USA.
² Department of Materials Engineering Science, Osaka University, Osaka 560-8531, Japan.
³ PRESTO, Japan Science and Technology Agency, Saitama 332-0012, Japan.
⁴ Department of Physics, International Center of Quantum and Molecular Structures, and Materials Genome Institute, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China.
⁵ Argonne National Laboratories, Lemont, IL 60439, USA.
⁶ School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
⁷ Department of Physics, International Center of Quantum and Molecular Structures, and Materials Genome Institute, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China. kono@rice.edu sxcao@shu.edu.cn.
⁸ Fakultät für Physik, Universität Duisburg-Essen, Lotharstr. 1, Duisburg 47057, Germany.
⁹ Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Ackermannweg 10, Mainz 55128, Germany.
¹⁰ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Rice University, Houston, TX 77005, USA. kono@rice.edu sxcao@shu.edu.cn.
¹¹ Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Rice University, Houston, TX 77005, USA.
¹² Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rice University, Houston, TX 77005, USA.

PMID: 30139871
DOI: 10.1126/science.aat5162

Abstract

The interaction of N two-level atoms with a single-mode light field is an extensively studied many-body problem in quantum optics, first analyzed by Dicke in the context of superradiance. A characteristic of such systems is the cooperative enhancement of the coupling strength by a factor of N. In this study, we extended this cooperatively enhanced coupling to a solid-state system, demonstrating that it also occurs in a magnetic solid in the form of matter-matter interaction. Specifically, the exchange interaction of N paramagnetic erbium(III) (Er³⁺) spins with an iron(III) (Fe³⁺) magnon field in erbium orthoferrite (ErFeO₃) exhibits a vacuum Rabi splitting whose magnitude is proportional to N. Our results provide a route for understanding, controlling, and predicting novel phases of condensed matter using concepts and tools available in quantum optics.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.