Photon Blockade Effects Research Articles

The photon blockade in a three-wave mixing system coupled with a quantum dot

In this paper, the photon blockade effect in a three-wave mixing coupling system with a quantum dot has been studied. By using analytical calculation and numerical analysis, we find that both the conventional photon blockade and the unconventional photon blockade effects could be realized in this system in strong-coupling regime just by one driving. Besides, compared with Jaynes–Cummings model, this hybrid system shows other obvious advantages in realizing the photon blockade, like blockading photon of more different frequencies, stronger antibunching effect. All the results may provide useful theoretical references for the single-photon devices design by using quantum dot and three-wave mixing system in future experiments and applications.

Atom Mediated Single‐Photon Nonlinearity in a Quadratically Coupled Optomechanical System

AbstractIn this paper, conventional phonon blockade (CPNB) and conventional photon blockade (CPTB) effects, as well as unconventional phonon blockade (UPB) effects, are studied in an optomechanical system with nonlinear interaction between the cavity frequency and the square of the mechanical displacement driven by an external field, where a two‐level atom couples with the mechanical mode and a microwave driving field pumps cavity mode. The second‐order correlation function is analytically calculated, which is in good agreement with the numerical simulation given by the master equation. With energy‐level diagram, the atom‐mechanical mode coupling is found to induces the degeneracy splitting of the states and give the optimal conditions for CPNB and CPTB in this system. With the origin of UPB, the optimal conditions are derived and it is found that the realization of UPB is determined by the two couplings of the cavity and atom with respect to the mechanical mode. Moreover, some discussions on the experimental implementation in this quadratically coupled optomechanical system are presented. This study provides a possible way for realizing single‐photon nonlinearity and can extend the applications of optomechanical systems in the field of quantum optics.

Phase-Controlled Tunable Unconventional Photon Blockade in a Single-Atom-Cavity System.

In the past few years, cavity optomechanical systems have received extensive attention and research and have achieved rapid development both theoretically and experimentally. The systems play an important role in many fields, such as quantum information processing, optomechanical storage, high-precision measurement, macroscopic entanglement, ultrasensitive sensors and so on. Photon manipulation has always been one of the key tasks in quantum information science and technology. Photon blockade is an important way to realize single photon sources and plays an important role in the field of quantum information. Due to the nonlinear coupling of the optical force system, the energy level is not harmonic, resulting in a photon blockade effect. In this paper, we study the phase-controlled tunable unconventional photon blockade in a single-atom-cavity system, and the second-order nonlinear crystals are attached to the cavity. The cavity interacts with squeezed light, which results in a nonlinear process. The system is driven by a complex pulsed laser, and the strength of the coherent driving contains the phase. We want to study the effect of squeezed light and phase. We use the second-order correlation function to numerically and theoretically analyze the photon blockade effect. We show that quantum interference of two-photon excitation between three different transition pathways can cause a photon blockade effect. When there is no squeezed light, the interference pathways becomes two, but there are still photon blockade effects. We explore the influence of the tunable phase and second-order nonlinear strength on the photon blockade effect. We calculate the correlation function and compare the numerical results with the analytical results under certain parameters and find that the agreement is better.

Quantum Coherent Control of a Single Molecular-Polariton Rotation.

We present a combined analytical and numerical study for coherent terahertz control of a single molecular polariton, formed by strongly coupling two rotational states of a molecule with a single-mode cavity. Compared to the bare molecules driven by a single terahertz pulse, the presence of a cavity strongly modifies the postpulse orientation of the polariton, making it difficult to obtain its maximal degree of orientation. To solve this challenging problem toward achieving complete quantum coherent control, we derive an analytical solution of a pulse-driven quantum Jaynes-Cummings model by expanding the wave function into entangled states and constructing an effective Hamiltonian. We utilize it to design a composite terahertz pulse and obtain the maximum degree of orientation of the polariton by exploiting photon blockade effects. This Letter offers a new strategy to study rotational dynamics in the strong-coupling regime and provides a method for complete quantum coherent control of a single molecular polariton. It, therefore, has direct applications in polariton chemistry and molecular polaritonics for exploring novel quantum optical phenomena.

Two-photon blockade generated and enhanced by mechanical squeezing

Photon blockade is an important quantum nonlinear phenomenon in cavity optomechanics. Here, we investigate the two-photon blockade effect by exploiting the mechanical squeezing. This squeezing can enhance the optomechanical-coupling strength into the single-photon strong-coupling regime. With strong coupling, we find the photon blockade effects can be generated and enhanced, and the region where the two-photon blockade occurs can be widened. Finally, we study the transition between photon-induced tunneling and blockade.

Enhancement of photon blockade effect via quantum interference.

We study the photon blockade effect in a coupled cavity system, which is formed by a linear cavity coupled to a Kerr-type nonlinear cavity via a photon-hopping interaction. We explain the physical phenomenon from the viewpoint of the conventional and unconventional photon blockade effects. The corresponding physical mechanisms of the two kinds of photon blockade effects are based on the anharmonicity in the eigenenergy spectrum and the destructive quantum interference between two different transition paths, respectively. In particular, we find that the photon blockade via destructive quantum interference also exists in the conventional photon blockade regime and that the unconventional photon blockade occurs in both the weak- and strong-Kerr nonlinearity cases. The photon blockade effect can be observed by calculating the second-order correlation function of the cavity field. This model is general and hence it can be implemented in various experimental setups such as coupled optical-cavity systems, coupled photon-magnon systems, and coupled superconducting-resonator systems. We present some discussions on the experimental feasibility.

Photon excitation and photon-blockade effects in optomagnonic microcavities

Controlling the interaction between the spin wave and the electromagnetic field is an important issue of optoelectronics. The effect of photon blockade is to indicate the interaction that prevents multiple photons from entering the cavity simultaneously, which is the pivotal effect to achieve the photons at the quantum level. Here in this study, we investigate an effective way of photon controlling and find the photon-blockade effect in the hybrid optomagnonic microcavity. Specifically, we show that the magnons and photons in both transverse electric and transverse magnetic modes can be converted into the supermode photons under the Kerr effect. Also the correlation function of the photons is analytically studied, which shows the asymmetry behavior for the two different supermodes. This proposed system opens up a route to control the optical mode in hybrid microresonators, which are important for advanced quantum technologies.

Controllable nonlinearity in a dual-coupling optomechanical system under a weak-coupling regime

Strong quantum nonlinearity gives rise to many interesting quantum effects and has wide applications in quantum physics. Herewe investigate the quantum nonlinear effect of an optomechanical system (OMS) consisting of both linear and quadratic coupling. Interestingly, a controllable optomechanical nonlinearity is obtained by applying a driving laser into the cavity. This controllable optomechanical nonlinearity can be enhanced into a strong coupling regime, even if the system is initially in the weak-coupling regime. Moreover, the system dissipation can be suppressed effectively, which allows the appearance of phonon sideband and photon blockade effects in the weak-coupling regime. This work may inspire the exploration of a dual-coupling optomechanical system as well as its applications in modern quantum science.

Method for observing robust and tunable phonon blockade in a nanomechanical resonator coupled to a charge qubit

Phonon blockade is a purely quantum phenomenon, analogous to Coulomb and photon blockades, in which a single phonon in an anharmonic mechanical resonator can impede the excitation of a second phonon. We propose an experimental method to realize phonon blockade in a driven harmonic nanomechanical resonator coupled to a qubit, where the coupling is proportional to the second-order nonlinear susceptibility $\chi^{(2)}$. This is in contrast to the standard realizations of phonon and photon blockade effects in Kerr-type $\chi^{(3)}$ nonlinear systems. The nonlinear coupling strength can be adjusted conveniently by changing the coherent drive field.As an example, we apply this model to predict and describe phonon blockade in a nanomechanical resonator coupled to a Cooper-pair box (i.e., a charge qubit) with a linear longitudinal coupling. By obtaining the solutions of the steady state for this composite system, we give the conditions forobserving strong antibunching and sub-Poissonian phonon-number statistics in this induced second-order nonlinear system. Besides using the qubit to produce phonon blockade states, the qubit itself can also be employed to detect blockade effects by measuring its states. Numerical simulations indicate that the robustness of the phonon blockade, and the sensitivity of detecting it, will benefit from this strong induced nonlinear coupling.

Enhanced electromechanical coupling of a nanomechanical resonator to coupled superconducting cavities.

We investigate the electromechanical coupling between a nanomechanical resonator and two parametrically coupled superconducting coplanar waveguide cavities that are driven by a two-mode squeezed microwave source. We show that, with the selective coupling of the resonator to the cavity Bogoliubov modes, the radiation-pressure type coupling can be greatly enhanced by several orders of magnitude, enabling the single photon strong coupling to be reached. This allows the investigation of a number of interesting phenomena such as photon blockade effects and the generation of nonclassical quantum states with electromechanical systems.

Exact optimal control of photon blockade with weakly nonlinear coupled cavities.

We propose a scheme of photon blockade in a system comprising of coupled cavities embedded in Kerr nonlinear material, where two cavities are driven and dissipated. We analytically derive the exact optimal conditions for strong photon antibunching, which are in good agreement with those obtained by numerical simulations. We find that conventional and unconventional photon blockades have controllable flexibilities by tuning the strength ratio and relative phase between two complex driving fields. Such unconventional photon-blockade effects are ascribed to the quantum interference effect to avoid two-photon excitation of the coupled cavities. We also discuss the statistical properties of the photons under given optimal conditions. Our results provide a promising platform for the coherent manipulation of photon blockade, which has potential applications for quantum information processing and quantum optical devices.

Quantum optical diode with semiconductor microcavities

The semiconductor diode, which acts as an electrical rectifier and allows unidirectional electronic transports, is the key to information processing in integrated circuits. Analogously, an optical rectifier (or diode) working at specific target wavelengths has recently becomes a dreaming device in optical communication and signal processing. In this paper, we propose a scheme to realize an optical diode for photonic transport at the level of few photons. The system consists of two spatially overlapping single-mode semiconductor microcavities coupled via ${\chi ^{(2)}}$ nonlinearities. The photon blockade is predicted to take place in this system. These photon blockade effects can be achieved by tuning the frequency of the input laser field (driving field). Based on those blockades, we derive analytically the single- and two-photon current in terms of zero and finite-time delayed two-order correlation function. The results suggest that the system can serve as an single- and two-photon quantum optical diodes which allow transmission of photons in one direction much more efficiently than in the other.

Coherent Control of Quantum Fluctuations Using Cavity Electromagnetically Induced Transparency

We study the all-optical control of the quantum fluctuations of a light beam via a combination of single-atom cavity quantum electrodynamics (CQED) and electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). Specifically, the EIT control field is used to tune the CQED transition frequencies in and out of resonance with the probe light. In this way, photon blockade and antiblockade effects are employed to produce sub-Poissonian and super-Poissonian light fields, respectively. The achievable quantum control paves the way towards the realization of a prototype of a novel quantum transistor which amplifies or attenuates the relative intensity noise of a light beam. Its feasibility is demonstrated by calculations using realistic parameters from recent experiments.

Photon blockade with a four-level quantum emitter coupled to a photonic-crystal nanocavity

We study the photon blockade phenomenon in a nanocavity containing a single four-level quantum emitter. By numerically simulating the second-order autocorrelation function of the intra-cavity field with realistic parameters achievable in a state-of-the-art photonic-crystal nanocavity, we show that significant photon blockade effects appear even outside the strong coupling regime. We introduce an intuitive picture of the photon blockade that explains the performance difference between the two-level and the four-level emitter schemes reported in previous works, as well as why—in contrast to a cavity containing a two-level atom—signatures of photon blockade appear and should be experimentally observable outside the strong coupling regime when a four-level emitter is used. Finally, we show that thanks to the emitter–cavity coupling achievable in a nanocavity, photon blockade can be realized despite the large frequency difference between the relevant optical transitions in realistic four-level emitters, which has so far prevented the experimental realization of this photon blockade scheme.

Two-photon transport in a waveguide coupled to a cavity in a two-level system

We consider a system where a waveguide is coupled to a cavity embedded with a two-level system (TLS), and study the effects when a two-photon quantum state is injected into the waveguide. The wave function of two outgoing photons is exactly solved using the Lehmann-Symanzik-Zimmermann (LSZ) reduction formalism. Our results explicitly exhibit the photon blockade effects in the strong atom-cavity coupling regime. The quantum statistical characters of the outgoing photons, including the photon bunching and anti-bunching behaviors, are also investigated in both the strong and weak coupling regimes. These results agree with the observations of recent experiments.