Cavity Quantum Electrodynamics, Nanophotonics, and Quantum Communication with Atomically Doped Carbon Nanotubes

The latest theoretical studies of the near-field electrodynamic properties of atomically doped carbon nanotubes are reviewed. It has been shown that, similar to semiconductor microcavities and photonic band-gap materials, carbon nanotubes may qualitatively change the character of the atom–electromagnetic-field interactions, yielding strong atom–field coupling and the formation of quasi-one-dimensional atomic polariton states. A scheme for entangling such polaritons has been considered, and small-diameter metallic nanotubes have been shown to result in sizable amounts of the two-quantum bit (qubit) atomic entanglement with no damping for sufficiently long times. This challenges novel applications of atomically doped carbon nanotubes in quantum information science.