arXiv:1901.00414 · Physical Review A

Two-photon resonance fluorescence of a ladder-type atomic system

Simone Gasparinetti, Jean-Claude Besse, Marek Pechal, Robin D. Buijs, Christopher Eichler, H. J. Carmichael, Andreas J. Wallraff

Published Sep 3, 2019• 15 citations

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Abstract

Multiphoton emitters are a sought-after resource in quantum photonics. Nonlinear interactions between a multilevel atomic system and a coherent drive can lead to resonant two-photon emission, but harvesting light from this process has remained a challenge due to the small oscillator strengths involved. Here we present a study of two-photon resonance fluorescence at microwave frequencies, using a superconducting, ladder-type artificial atom, a transmon, strongly coupled to a waveguide. We drive the two-photon transition between the ground and second-excited states at increasingly high powers and observe a resonance fluorescence peak whose intensity becomes comparable to single-photon emission until it splits into a Mollow-like triplet. We measure photon correlations of frequency-filtered spectral lines and find that while emission at the fundamental frequency stays antibunched, the resonance fluorescence peak at the two-photon transition is superbunched. Our results provide a route towards the realization of multiphoton sources in the microwave domain.

DOI: 10.1103/physreva.100.033802

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