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arXiv:1803.10992 · Physical Review Letters

Observation of the Unconventional Photon Blockade

Henk Snijders, J. A. Frey, Justin Norman, Hugo Flayac, Vincenzo Savona, Arthur C. Gossard, John Edward Bowers, Martin P. van Exter, Dirk Bouwmeester, W. Löffler

Published Jul 23, 2018• 273 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We observe the unconventional photon blockade effect in quantum dot cavity QED, which, in contrast to the conventional photon blockade, operates in the weak coupling regime. A single quantum dot transition is simultaneously coupled to two orthogonally polarized optical cavity modes, and by careful tuning of the input and output state of polarization, the unconventional photon blockade effect is observed. We find a minimum second-order correlation g^{(2)}(0)≈0.37, which corresponds to g^{(2)}(0)≈0.005 when corrected for detector jitter, and observe the expected polarization dependency and photon bunching and antibunching; close by in parameter space, which indicates the abrupt change from phase to amplitude squeezing.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.121.043601

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We observe the unconventional photon blockade effect in quantum dot cavity QED, which, in contrast to the conventional photon blockade, operates in the weak coupling regime. A single quantum dot transition is simultaneously coupled to two orthogonally polarized optical cavity modes, and by careful tuning of the input and output state of polarization, the unconventional photon blockade effect is observed. We find a minimum second-order correlation g^{(2)}(0)≈0.37, which corresponds to g^{(2)}(0)≈0.005 when corrected for detector jitter, and observe the expected polarization dependency and photon bunching and antibunching; close by in parameter space, which indicates the abrupt change from phase to amplitude squeezing.
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.
We theoretically investigate the quantum-interference-induced photon blockade effect in a single two-level atom-cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED) system with degenerate parametric amplification. The analytical calculations reveal the optimal parametric gain and phase parameters for achieving optimum unconventional photon blockade conditions. Under the optimal parameter regime, the numerical results of the second-order correlation function demonstrate strong photon antibunching consistent with the analytical results. Furthermore, the numerical results corroborate that coherently driving the atom leads to a stronger photon blockade than a coherently driven cavity with the optimal parameters. We numerically demonstrate that the UPB effect is compromised by a non-zero cavity-atom coupling in the cavity-driven configuration. However, stronger photon antibunching can be attained with a non-zero cavity-atom coupling in the atom-driven configuration. This work may be suitable for experimentally realising a strongly antibunched single-photon source for applications in quantum technology.
In this paper, we show that photon blockade can be observed in a system with weak Kerr nonlinearities. The system consists of two spatially overlapping single-mode semiconductor cavities with tunable one- and two-photon tunneling. We find that both conventional and unconventional single-photon blockades are controllable by manipulating the phase in the hopping regardless of the weakness of nonlinearity. We refer to the photon blockade with weak nonlinearities as an unconventional photon blockade. The unconventional photon blockade effect originates from the destructive interference between different paths from the ground state to two-photon states. We analytically derive the exact optimal conditions for strong antibunching, which are in good agreement with those obtained by numerical simulations. The optimal parameters for photon blockade are derived. Based on these parameters, the semiconductor cavity systems can be used as a single-photon source in regimes of both weak and strong nonlinearities.
We investigate theoretically the model of a cavity-quantum-electrodynamics (QED) system that consists of two two-level atoms coupled to a single-mode cavity in the weak coupling regime, where the system is driven by quantum light. The dynamics behavior of the entire system is tackled in the framework of a cascaded quantum system. We find that the two-photon blockade with two-photon bunching and three-photon antibunching can be obtained even when the strong system dissipation is included. This result shows that our work has potential for realizing entangled photon pairs in a weakly coupled cavity. Moreover, we also analyze the photon statistics of the system in the case of out-of-resonance coupling between cavity and two nonidentical atoms. Here, an unconventional photon blockade effect with suppression of two-photon correlation and enhancement of three-photon correlation can be realized, which shows many quantum statistical characteristics of a cavity QED system in weak coupling.
The antibunching effect generated in a cavity containing first a single two-level atomic system and then two identical atoms is explored for off-resonant interactions, in strong- and weak-coupling regimes. The cavity is driven by coherent and squeezed sources. Using the second-order correlation function analytically derived in the weak-excitation regime, we show that squeezed light achieves and improves strong antibunching, leading to a photon blockade. This enhancement is due to a destructive quantum interference mechanism induced by the nonclassical light, creating a supplementary transition pathway. The best effect is obtained for equal frequency detunings in the strong-coupling regime. More interestingly, our investigation reveals that the two-atom-cavity system can further improve the antibunching effect compared to the single-atom cavity. It turns out that the additional couplings appearing in the cavity due to the implementation of the two atoms, combined with the squeezed light, could substantially enhance the photon-blockade effect.
We propose an experimental scheme to implement a strong photon blockade with a single quantum dot coupled to a nanocavity. The photon blockade effect can be tremendously enhanced by driving the cavity and the quantum dot simultaneously with two classical laser fields. This enhancement of photon blockade is ascribed to the quantum interference effect to avoid two-photon excitation of the cavity field. Comparing with Jaynes-Cummings model, the second-order correlation function at zero time delay g((2))(0) in our scheme can be reduced by two orders of magnitude and the system sustains a large intracavity photon number. A red (blue) cavity-light detuning asymmetry for photon quantum statistics with bunching or antibunching characteristics is also observed. The photon blockade effect has a controllable flexibility by tuning the relative phase between the two pumping laser fields and the Rabi coupling strength between the quantum dot and the pumping field. Moreover, the photon blockade scheme based on quantum interference mechanism does not require a strong coupling strength between the cavity and the quantum dot, even with the pure dephasing of the system. This simple proposal provides an effective way for potential applications in solid state quantum computation and quantum information processing.