Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

arXiv:0910.1900 · Physical Review Letters

Photon-Number Selective Group Delay in Cavity Induced Transparency

Gor Nikoghosyan, Michael Fleischhauer

Published Jun 29, 2010• 46 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We show that the group velocity of a probe pulse in an ensemble of Λ-type atoms driven by a quantized cavity mode depends on the quantum state-of-the input probe pulse. In the strong-coupling regime of the atom-cavity system the probe group delay is photon-number selective. This can be used to spatially separate the single photon from higher photon-number components of a few-photon probe pulse and thus create a deterministic single-photon source.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.105.013601

Related papers

Number-state filter for pulses of light

Nikolai Lauk, Michael Fleischhauer

We present a detailed theoretical analysis of a Fock-state filter based on the photon-number-dependent group delay in cavity-induced transparency proposed by Nikoghosyan and Fleischhauer [G. Nikoghosyan and M. Fleischhauer, Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 013601 (2010)]. We derive a general expression for the propagation velocity of different photon-number components of a light pulse interacting with an optically dense ensemble of three-level atoms coupled to a resonator mode under conditions of cavity-induced transparency. These predictions are compared to numerical simulations of the propagation of few-photon wave packets, and an estimation for experimental realization is made.

arXiv:1512.08213•Physical Review A•Jun 9, 2016•4 citations

Interference effects on quantum light group velocity in cavity induced transparency

A. Eilam, Ioannis Thanopulos

Abstract We investigate the propagation of a quantized probe field in a dense medium composed of three-level Λ-type systems under cavity electromagnetically induced transparency conditions. We treat the medium as composed of collective states of the three-level systems while the light-medium interaction occurs within clusters of such collective states depending on the photon number state of the probe field. We observe slower group velocity for lower photon number input probe field only under conditions of no interference between different clusters of collective states in the system.

Journal of Physics B Atomic Molecular and Optical Physics•Aug 26, 2015•3 citations

Vacuum-Induced Transparency

Haruka Tanji, Wenlan Chen, Renate Landig +2 more

Photons are excellent information carriers but normally pass through each other without consequence. Engineered interactions between photons would enable applications as varied as quantum information processing and simulation of condensed matter systems. Using an ensemble of cold atoms strongly coupled to an optical cavity, we found that the transmission of light through a medium may be controlled with few photons and even by the electromagnetic vacuum field. The vacuum induces a group delay of 25 nanoseconds on the input optical pulse, corresponding to a light velocity of 1600 meters per second, and a transparency of 40% that increases to 80% when the cavity is filled with 10 photons. This strongly nonlinear effect provides prospects for advanced quantum devices such as photon number–state filters.

•Jan 1, 2011•1 citation

Vacuum-Induced Transparency

Haruka Tanji, Wenlan Chen, Renate Landig +2 more

Photons are excellent information carriers but normally pass through each other without consequence. Engineered interactions between photons would enable applications as varied as quantum information processing and simulation of condensed matter systems. Using an ensemble of cold atoms strongly coupled to an optical cavity, we found that the transmission of light through a medium may be controlled with few photons and even by the electromagnetic vacuum field. The vacuum induces a group delay of 25 nanoseconds on the input optical pulse, corresponding to a light velocity of 1600 meters per second, and a transparency of 40% that increases to 80% when the cavity is filled with 10 photons. This strongly nonlinear effect provides prospects for advanced quantum devices such as photon number-state filters.

arXiv:1107.3999•Science•Aug 5, 2011•141 citations

Vacuum-induced transparency

Haruka Tanji, Wenlan Chen, Renate Landig +2 more

Engineered strong photon-photon interactions would enable a broad range of applications in quantum information processing. We demonstrate, using an ensemble of atoms strongly coupled to an optical cavity, that light transmission through an opaque medium may be controlled with a few photons and even with the electromagnetic vacuum field. The vacuum field induces 40% transmission, accompanied by a group delay of 25 ns, which corresponds to the light pulse propagating at 1600 m/s through the medium. The transmission increases to 80% when ~10 photons are injected into the cavity. The strong optical nonlinearity at a few-photon level observed in this system opens prospects for advanced quantum devices such as photon-number-state filters.

•Aug 1, 2011•3 citations

Photon Blockade with Memory and Slow Light using a Single Atom in an Optical Cavity

Haytham Chibani

The realization of nonlinear systems able to mediate strong interactions between light fields at the few photon level in an environment with minimal absorption represents a cornerstone for future developments of quantum information science and photonic quantum technologies.One approach to reach this goal is via strong coupling of single emitters to optical cavities as provided by cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED).The other one is via electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) with single atoms or with atomic ensembles.This thesis reports on a system which merges both single-atom cavity QED in the strong coupling regime and EIT.First, we characterize this system theoretically and show that its energy eigenstates are very similar to the well known Jaynes-Cummings ladder of eigenstates.However, here, the eigenstates are optically controllable via the control field Rabi frequency provided by EIT.We show that increasing the control field Rabi frequency enhances the normalmode splitting, and therefore the effective light-matter coupling.Moreover, with this system we are able to observe photon blockade and a two-photon gateway for the same input probe field and to tune the behavior of the secondorder correlation function optically.Thanks to the long coherence times of EIT, photon blockade can be prolonged in time for longer times than the decay rates of the system.We refer to this effect as photon blockade with memory.Next, we verify our theoretical findings experimentally.By performing spectroscopy measurements on the single-atom cavity EIT system, we show an unprecedented EIT on/off contrast of about 80 % thanks to our strong atomcavity coupling rate.Later, we show experimentally, the ability to generate both, photon blockade and a two-photon gateway, for the same input field by just varying the control field Rabi frequency.Finally, by performing timedependent second-order correlations we observe strong oscillations in the correlations which are a result of the creation of a new light field in the cavity which beats with the impinging probe laser.We show experimentally that this new field has a coherence time longer than the decay rates of the system, confirming its EIT origin.In a final experiment, we take advantage of the strong atom-cavity coupling achieved to induce a group delay on probing pulses.Delays up to approximately 200 ns are measured.This is the first time a group delay is observed with a single atom as the delaying medium.iii

•Jan 1, 2016•0 citations
We show that the group velocity of a probe pulse in an ensemble of Λ-type atoms driven by a quantized cavity mode depends on the quantum state-of-the input probe pulse. In the strong-coupling regime of the atom-cavity system the probe group delay is photon-number selective. This can be used to spatially separate the single photon from higher photon-number components of a few-photon probe pulse and thus create a deterministic single-photon source.
We present a detailed theoretical analysis of a Fock-state filter based on the photon-number-dependent group delay in cavity-induced transparency proposed by Nikoghosyan and Fleischhauer [G. Nikoghosyan and M. Fleischhauer, Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 013601 (2010)]. We derive a general expression for the propagation velocity of different photon-number components of a light pulse interacting with an optically dense ensemble of three-level atoms coupled to a resonator mode under conditions of cavity-induced transparency. These predictions are compared to numerical simulations of the propagation of few-photon wave packets, and an estimation for experimental realization is made.
Abstract We investigate the propagation of a quantized probe field in a dense medium composed of three-level Λ-type systems under cavity electromagnetically induced transparency conditions. We treat the medium as composed of collective states of the three-level systems while the light-medium interaction occurs within clusters of such collective states depending on the photon number state of the probe field. We observe slower group velocity for lower photon number input probe field only under conditions of no interference between different clusters of collective states in the system.
Photons are excellent information carriers but normally pass through each other without consequence. Engineered interactions between photons would enable applications as varied as quantum information processing and simulation of condensed matter systems. Using an ensemble of cold atoms strongly coupled to an optical cavity, we found that the transmission of light through a medium may be controlled with few photons and even by the electromagnetic vacuum field. The vacuum induces a group delay of 25 nanoseconds on the input optical pulse, corresponding to a light velocity of 1600 meters per second, and a transparency of 40% that increases to 80% when the cavity is filled with 10 photons. This strongly nonlinear effect provides prospects for advanced quantum devices such as photon number–state filters.
Photons are excellent information carriers but normally pass through each other without consequence. Engineered interactions between photons would enable applications as varied as quantum information processing and simulation of condensed matter systems. Using an ensemble of cold atoms strongly coupled to an optical cavity, we found that the transmission of light through a medium may be controlled with few photons and even by the electromagnetic vacuum field. The vacuum induces a group delay of 25 nanoseconds on the input optical pulse, corresponding to a light velocity of 1600 meters per second, and a transparency of 40% that increases to 80% when the cavity is filled with 10 photons. This strongly nonlinear effect provides prospects for advanced quantum devices such as photon number-state filters.
Engineered strong photon-photon interactions would enable a broad range of applications in quantum information processing. We demonstrate, using an ensemble of atoms strongly coupled to an optical cavity, that light transmission through an opaque medium may be controlled with a few photons and even with the electromagnetic vacuum field. The vacuum field induces 40% transmission, accompanied by a group delay of 25 ns, which corresponds to the light pulse propagating at 1600 m/s through the medium. The transmission increases to 80% when ~10 photons are injected into the cavity. The strong optical nonlinearity at a few-photon level observed in this system opens prospects for advanced quantum devices such as photon-number-state filters.
The realization of nonlinear systems able to mediate strong interactions between light fields at the few photon level in an environment with minimal absorption represents a cornerstone for future developments of quantum information science and photonic quantum technologies.One approach to reach this goal is via strong coupling of single emitters to optical cavities as provided by cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED).The other one is via electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) with single atoms or with atomic ensembles.This thesis reports on a system which merges both single-atom cavity QED in the strong coupling regime and EIT.First, we characterize this system theoretically and show that its energy eigenstates are very similar to the well known Jaynes-Cummings ladder of eigenstates.However, here, the eigenstates are optically controllable via the control field Rabi frequency provided by EIT.We show that increasing the control field Rabi frequency enhances the normalmode splitting, and therefore the effective light-matter coupling.Moreover, with this system we are able to observe photon blockade and a two-photon gateway for the same input probe field and to tune the behavior of the secondorder correlation function optically.Thanks to the long coherence times of EIT, photon blockade can be prolonged in time for longer times than the decay rates of the system.We refer to this effect as photon blockade with memory.Next, we verify our theoretical findings experimentally.By performing spectroscopy measurements on the single-atom cavity EIT system, we show an unprecedented EIT on/off contrast of about 80 % thanks to our strong atomcavity coupling rate.Later, we show experimentally, the ability to generate both, photon blockade and a two-photon gateway, for the same input field by just varying the control field Rabi frequency.Finally, by performing timedependent second-order correlations we observe strong oscillations in the correlations which are a result of the creation of a new light field in the cavity which beats with the impinging probe laser.We show experimentally that this new field has a coherence time longer than the decay rates of the system, confirming its EIT origin.In a final experiment, we take advantage of the strong atom-cavity coupling achieved to induce a group delay on probing pulses.Delays up to approximately 200 ns are measured.This is the first time a group delay is observed with a single atom as the delaying medium.iii