Abstract
A cyclic atomic level scheme interacting with an optical and a microwave field is proposed for the generation and group-delay control of few-photon optical pulses. Our analysis exploits a hybrid second order-nonlinearity under conditions of electromagnetically induced transparency to generate an optical pulse. The generated pulse can be delayed or advanced through microwave intensity control of the absolute phase of the second-order-nonlinearity. Importantly, this handle on group delay of the generated pulse is number density-independent. Our scheme is thus ideally suited for the generation and control of few-photon optical pulses using ultra-dilute atomic samples. Our results will enable microscopic atomic interface systems that serve as controllable delay channels for both classical and quantum signal processing.
Highlights
Generating few-photon and single-photon [1,2,3,4] pulses-on-demand is an important resource for many applications in quantum enabled technologies
We propose a mechanism to control generation and group delay of a few-photon optical pulse that is independent of density and spatial extent of the generating sample
We show that group delay of the optical pulse can be controlled by the intensity of the pump microwave field
Summary
Generating few-photon and single-photon [1,2,3,4] pulses-on-demand is an important resource for many applications in quantum enabled technologies. Dilute atomic sample-based controllable generation, storage and transmission of single-photon pulses has been experimentally realized [9,10]. In the above mentioned studies of EIT-based generation and control of photon pulses done so far, efficiency of the process is directly proportional to number density and spatial extent of the sample. Generation of a few-photon optical probe pulse is made possible using a hybrid second order-nonlinearity induced through a cyclic closed three-level scheme in a dilute atomic system. We show that a group delay of the order of 1 μs can be achieved with an ultra-dilute density of 106 cm−3 At such densities we show that the generated optical pulse has approximately a mean photon number of one. Χp(1) and χp(2) are used to study the group delay and temporal profile of the generated probe pulse
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