ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Photonics
Sec. Optical Nanostructures
Mach-Zehnder interferometers that include electrochromic molecules to control the detection of single photons
Provisionally accepted
- 1Polytechnic University of Turin, Turin, Italy
- 2Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy
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One particularly fruitful research in the fields of integrated photonics, carried out by a good number of physicists and engineers, concerns the study of different types of materials to be used to control the detection of photons, if not just single photons, in interferometers. In a Mach-Zehnder interferometer, which consists of two beam-splitters, two mirrors and two detectors, a material that can cause a controlled change in the phase of light in one of the two arms of the interferometer consequently allows a control of the probability of detection at the two detectors. In this work, we use an electrochromic molecule, N,N′-bis(cysteine)pyromellitic diimide (BCPD), that has a refractive index dependent on the applied electric field. We simulate the single-photon detection probability at a Mach-Zehnder interferometer with direct light transmission and a waveguide-based Mach-Zehnder interferometer, consisting of two 3-dB couplers connected by two optical channel waveguides. With the employment of the nonequilibrium Green's function formalism, we have simulated the conductance of BCPD. The results could be of interest in quantum communication.
Keywords: electrochromic molecule, Hueckel theory, Mach-Zehnder interferometer, modulator, Quantum information
Received: 13 Aug 2025; Accepted: 03 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Scotognella. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Francesco Scotognella
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