Photon blockade by enhancing coupling via a nonlinear medium.

Abstract

A significantly low value of the single-photon coupling constant is a major challenge in the creation of a single-photon source via photon blockade. Here, we propose a photon blockade scheme composed of a weakly second-order nonlinear medium with an optical parametric amplification in a low-frequency cavity. Unlike the traditional weakly coupled system, the effective coupling strength in the proposed scheme can be significantly higher than the decay rate of the cavity mode. This can be achieved by adjusting the squeezing parameter even if the original coupling strength is weak. The thermal noise of the squeezed cavity mode can be suppressed by a squeezed vacuum field. Using a probability amplitude method, we obtain the optimal condition of photon blockade in the steady-state. By solving the master equation numerically in the steady-state, a strong photon antibunching effect that is consistent with the optimal conditions can be obtained in the cavity with low frequency. Besides, the photon blockade phenomenon and cross-correlation of two cavities can be significantly enhanced under a specific squeezing parameter. Our results may be useful for future studies on the characteristics of photon statistics.