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arXiv:1212.2552 · New Journal of Physics

Optimal antibunching in passive photonic devices based on coupled nonlinear resonators

Sara Ferretti, Vincenzo Savona, Dario Gerace

Published Feb 7, 2013• 139 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We propose the use of weakly nonlinear passive materials for prospective applications in integrated quantum photonics. It is shown that strong enhancement of native optical nonlinearities by electromagnetic field confinement in photonic crystal resonators can lead to single-photon generation only exploiting the quantum interference of two coupled modes and the effect of photon blockade under resonant coherent driving. For realistic system parameters in state of the art microcavities, the efficiency of such a single-photon source is theoretically characterized by means of the second-order correlation function at zero-time delay as the main figure of merit, where major sources of loss and decoherence are taken into account within a standard master equation treatment. These results could stimulate the realization of integrated quantum photonic devices based on non-resonant material media, fully integrable with current semiconductor technology and matching the relevant telecom band operational wavelengths, as an alternative to single-photon nonlinear devices based on cavity quantum electrodynamics with artificial atoms or single atomic-like emitters.

DOI
10.1088/1367-2630/15/2/025012

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Achieving the regime of single-photon nonlinearities in photonic devices by just exploiting the intrinsic high-order susceptibilities of conventional materials would open the door to practical semiconductor-based quantum photonic technologies. Here we show that this regime can be achieved in a triply resonant integrated photonic device made of two coupled ring resonators, in a material platform displaying an intrinsic third-order nonlinearity. By strongly driving one of the three resonances of the system, a weak coherent probe at one of the others results in a strongly suppressed two-photon probability at the output, evidenced by an antibunched second-order correlation function at zero-time delay under continuous wave driving.
Abstract We propose an unconventional photon blockade scheme in coupled semiconductor microcavities embedded in a nonlinear Kerr medium in the presence of photon leakage and bimodal driving on two cavity modes, which consists of two spatially overlapping single-mode semiconductor cavities with cross-Kerr nonlinearity and two-photon tunneling. A detailed analysis is derived for the exact optimal conditions for strong photon antibunching with weak Kerr nonlinearities. It is very important to find the transition of the structures of the solution for the optimal detuning from the quartic equation to the cubic equation when changing the two complex driving fields appropriately. The transition originates from the second driving field that compensates the numbers of interference paths reaching a two-photon state. This unconventional photon blockade can be realized by coupled photonic crystal cavities filled with a nonlinear Kerr medium. This implies that nonlinear Kerr medium systems can be used to generate tunable single-photon sources by tuning the strength and relative phase of two complex driving fields under weak Kerr nonlinearity.
The lack of suitable quantum emitters in silicon and silicon-based materials has prevented the realization of room temperature, compact, stable, and integrated sources of single photons in a scalable on-chip architecture, so far. Current approaches rely on exploiting the enhanced optical nonlinearity of silicon through light confinement or slow-light propagation, and are based on parametric processes that typically require substantial input energy and spatial footprint to reach a reasonable output yield. Here we propose an alternative all-silicon device that employs a different paradigm, namely the interplay between quantum interference and the third-order intrinsic nonlinearity in a system of two coupled optical cavities. This unconventional photon blockade allows to produce antibunched radiation at extremely low input powers. We demonstrate a reliable protocol to operate this mechanism under pulsed optical excitation, as required for device applications, thus implementing a true single-photon source. We finally propose a state-of-art implementation in a standard silicon-based photonic crystal integrated circuit that outperforms existing parametric devices either in input power or footprint area.
We propose the use of nanostructured photonic nanocavities made of ${\ensuremath{\chi}}^{(2)}$ nonlinear materials as prospective passive devices to generate strongly sub-Poissonian light via single-photon blockade of an input coherent field. The simplest scheme is based on the requirement that the nanocavity be doubly resonant, i.e., possess cavity modes with good spatial overlap at both the fundamental and second-harmonic frequencies. We discuss the feasibility of this scheme with state-of-the art nanofabrication technology and the possibility to use it as a passive single-photon source on demand.
In a recent work [Liew and Savona, Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 183601 (2010)] it was numerically shown that a resonantly driven photonic ``molecule'' consisting of two coupled cavities can exhibit strong photon antibunching with a surprisingly weak Kerr nonlinearity. Here, we analytically identify the subtle quantum interference effect that is responsible for the predicted efficient photon blockade effect. We then extend the theory to the experimentally relevant Jaynes-Cummings system consisting of a single quantum emitter in a coupled-cavity structure and predict the strong antibunching even for single-atom cooperativity on the order of or smaller than unity. The potential of this quantum interference effect in the realization of strongly correlated photonic systems with only weak material nonlinearities is assessed by comparing on-site and inter-site correlations in a ring of three coupled photonic molecules.