Optical manipulation of many-body systems of planar arrays of atoms*

Resonant light can couple strongly to subwavelength-spaced planar arrays of atoms where multiple scattering mediates long-range interactions and cooperative atom response. The cooperative response can be harnessed for engineering collective radiative excitations that correspond to those formed by arrays of magnetic dipoles and other multipoles, even when the atoms only exhibit electric dipole transitions [1]. Such optically active magnetism in neutral atomic system can be utilized in optical manipulation reminiscent of that considered in artificially fabricated metasurfaces. In particular, the atoms can form a Huygens’ surface, a physical realization of the Huygens’ principle, that provides an extreme wavefront control of transmitted light [1]. We compare the response of atom arrays to that of cavity qed and also show how the cooperative many-body response can be described by notably simpler superatom models that accurately predict reflection, transmission, photon storage, and non-classical resonance fluorescence [2-4].