Abstract
We use a single 133Cs atom strongly coupled to an optical resonator to induce random binary phase modulation of a near infra-red, ∼ 500 pW laser beam, with each modulation edge caused by the dissipation of a single photon (≈ 0.23 aJ) by the atom. While our ability to deterministically induce phase edges with an additional optical control beam is limited thus far, theoretical analysis of an analogous, solid-state system indicates that efficient external control should be achievable in demonstrated nanophotonic systems.
Highlights
Nanophotonic technologies offer great promise for ultra-low power optical signal processing, but relatively few nonlinear-optical phenomena have yet been explored as bases for robust digital modulation/switching [1,2,3,4]
When the emitter is modeled as a quantum two-level system (TLS), the two orthogonal ‘dressed’ states that arise in the strong driving limit [5] are coherent superpositions of the ground and excited states with 0 or π phase relative to the driving field
In the setting of cavity quantum electrodynamics with strong coupling [6, 7], in which we consider a TLS driven by the intra-cavity field of a high-finesse optical micro-resonator, the re-radiated field can have an amplitude that is comparable to that of the driving field itself, resulting in a substantial positive or negative phase shift of the total cavity output field relative to the input [8, 9]
Summary
The experiment consists of a standard cQED setup [9, 10] utilizing laser cooled 133Cs atoms and a high-finesse FabryPerot optical resonator. Photocurrent segments in each transit with above-shot noise variance (corresponding to TLS-induced binary phase switching) are algorithmically identified using HMM methods These segments persist for several tens of microseconds. Some subjective selection of these algorithmically-identified segments is required to limit the analysis to segments over which the variance is both reasonably high and constant in time, corresponding to switching signals in which the TLS maintained near-maximal coupling throughout. Independent trials of this selection process were found to result in similar final results. Despite this attempt to compensate for the timedependent atom-field coupling (due to a position-dependent g(r)), modulation in the switching variance is typically apparent over timescales greater than a few microseconds; a significant fraction of the transit segments display near-sinusoidal modulation in the switching variance, corresponding to atomic motion through several standing wave anti-nodes
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