Our paper on Spatially Resolved Photon Statistics of General Nanophotonic Systems has been published in PRX Quantum!

While experimental measurements of photon correlations have become routine, theoretical access to these quantities for light generated in complex nanophotonic devices remains a major challenge. Current methods are limited to specific simplified cases and lack generality.

In this work, we present a novel method that provides access to photon statistics resolved in space and frequency in arbitrary electromagnetic environments. Within the macroscopic QED framework, we develop a practical tool to compute electric field correlations for complex quantum systems by including lossy two-level systems that act as field detectors.

To make the implementation feasible, we use our recently developed multiemitter few-mode quantization method to correctly account for fully retarded light propagation to the detectors.

We demonstrate the effectiveness of the technique by studying photon correlations of one and two emitters near a plasmonic nanoparticle. The simulations show that even in these relatively simple configurations, the light statistics exhibit a strong angular dependence - highlighting the importance of going beyond conventional quantum optical approaches.

This work enables the study of quantum light generation in realistic nanophotonic devices.

This work was led by Maksim Lednev and Diego Fernández de la Pradilla, in collaboration with Frieder Lindel, Esteban Moreno and Francisco J. García-Vidal.