Quantum metasurfaces of arrays of Λ-emitters for photonic nano-devices

We address exotic optical response of a planar metasurface comprising a monolayer of regularly spaced quantum three-level emitters with a doublet in the ground state (the so-called Λ-emitters). All emitters are coupled by the retarded dipole field which depends on the current state of all emitters. This coupling introduces a feedback into the system. Complex interplay of the latter with the intrinsic nonlinearity of a three-level system results in several remarkable effects in the monolayer's optical response, such as multistability, self-oscillations, and chaos. The peculiarity of the considered system is that some of the predicted nonlinear effects manifest themselves at very low excitation field intensities (on the order of 1 W/cm2), which is advantageous for possible applications: the monolayer can operate as a perfect reflector, a bistable mirror, and a THz or noise generator. It is argued therefore that the proposed system is a promising candidate for a building block for various photonic nano-devices.