Photonic cavity modified near field resonant energy transfer between localized emitters from first principles

Radiative and nonradiative resonant couplings between defects are ubiquitous phenomena in photonic devices including ultra-high dense optical memories [1] and spin-defect based quantum memory devices. We present a first-principles approach to enable quantitative predictions of the near field energy transfer between defects in photonic cavities [2]. With the example of the F center in MgO we show that the cavity can be used to controllably enhance or suppress both spin-flip and spin-conserving transitions. Specifically, we predict that an ~100 times enhancement/suppression in the resonant energy transfer rate can be gained at ∼10 nm source-absorber distances using rather moderate cavities with quality factor Q ∼ 400 [2], and it can be controlled by only tuning the cavity mode frequency. The framework presented here is general and readily applicable to a wide range of materials and devices and paves the way to predict how to control energy transfer in ultrahigh-density optical memories, quantum memories and networks.

This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Science, for support of microelectronics research at the Extreme Lithography & Materials Innovation Center (ELMIC), under contract number DEAC0206CH11357.

[1] S. Chattaraj, S. Guha, G. Galli, First-principles investigation of near-field energy transfer between localized quantum emitters in solids. Phys. Rev. Research 6, 033170 (2024).

[2] S. Chattaraj, G. Galli, Energy transfer between localized emitters in photonic cavities from first principles. Phys. Rev. Research 7, 033229 (2025).