Quantum-optical analogies using photonic structures

Engineered photonic waveguides have provided in the past decade an extremely rich laboratory tool to visualize with optical waves the classic analogues of a wide variety of coherent quantum phenomena encountered in atomic, molecular or condensed-matter physics. As compared to quantum systems, optics offers the rather unique advantage of a direct mapping of the wave function evolution in coordinate space by simple fluorescence imaging or scanning tunneling optical microscopy techniques. In this contribution recent theoretical and experimental advances in the field of quantum-optical analogies are reviewed. Special attention is devoted to some relevant optical analogies based on the use of curved photonic structures, including: coherent destruction of tunneling in driven bistable potentials; coherent population transfer and adiabatic passage in laser-driven multilevel atomic systems; quantum decay control and Zeno dynamics; electronic Bloch oscillations and Zener tunneling, Anderson localization and dynamic localization in crystalline potentials.