Single-photon switching in a Floquet waveguide-QED system with time-modulated coupling constants

Abstract

The dynamical control of single-photon scattering in a one-dimensional waveguide coupled to a Floquet atom-cavity system with time-modulated coupling constants is investigated. The analytical expressions for determining the scattering properties are obtained by using an effective Floquet Hamiltonian in real space. The photon transport is extremely sensitive to the time-modulated atom-cavity coupling strengths. Two cases, i.e., the effective Floquet Hamiltonian either includes or excludes a static coupling term, are discussed in detail. The results show that, with such Floquet atom-cavity configuration, an active photonic switch with nearly ideal switching contrast could be implemented. The transmission of the waveguide photons with different frequencies can dynamically be switched on or off via adjusting the modulated amplitude or relative modulated phase no matter whether the static coupling between the atom and the two cavity modes is considered or not. The application of the dynamic modulated atom-cavity coupling strengths instead of a purely static one makes our photonic switch more tunable. These results are expected to be applicable in quantum information processing and in active quantum device design involving dynamical modulation.