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arXiv:1906.11019 · Scientific Reports

Observation of scalable sub-Poissonian-field lasing in a microlaser

Byoung-moo Ann, Younghoon Song, Junki Kim, Daeho Yang, Kyungwon An

Published Nov 19, 2019• 8 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Sub-Poisson field with much reduced fluctuations in a cavity can boost quantum precision measurements via cavity-enhanced light-matter interactions. Strong coupling between an atom and a cavity mode has been utilized to generate highly sub-Poisson fields. However, a macroscopic number of optical intracavity photons with more than 3 dB variance reduction has not been possible. Here, we report sub-Poisson field lasing in a microlaser operating with hundreds of atoms with well-regulated atom-cavity coupling and interaction time. Its photon-number variance was 4 dB below the standard quantum limit while the intracavity mean photon number scalable up to 600. The highly sub-Poisson photon statistics were not deteriorated by simultaneous interaction of a large number of atoms. Our finding suggests an effective pathway to widely scalable near-Fock-state lasing at the macroscopic scale.

DOI
10.1038/s41598-019-53525-3

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Sub-Poisson field with much reduced fluctuations in a cavity can boost quantum precision measurements via cavity-enhanced light-matter interactions. Strong coupling between an atom and a cavity mode has been utilized to generate highly sub-Poisson fields. However, a macroscopic number of optical intracavity photons with more than 3 dB variance reduction has not been possible. Here, we report sub-Poisson field lasing in a microlaser operating with hundreds of atoms with well-regulated atom-cavity coupling and interaction time. Its photon-number variance was 4 dB below the standard quantum limit while the intracavity mean photon number scalable up to 600. The highly sub-Poisson photon statistics were not deteriorated by simultaneous interaction of a large number of atoms. Our finding suggests an effective pathway to widely scalable near-Fock-state lasing at the macroscopic scale.
We have measured the second-order correlation function of the cavity-QED microlaser output and observed a transition from photon bunching to antibunching with increasing average number of intracavity atoms. The observed correlation times and the transition from super- to sub-Poisson photon statistics can be well described by gain-loss feedback or enhanced-reduced restoring action against fluctuations in photon number in the context of a quantum microlaser theory and a photon rate equation picture. However, the theory predicts a degree of antibunching several times larger than that observed, which may indicate the inadequacy of its treatment of atomic velocity distributions.
We perform quantum trajectory simulations of the micromaser/laser with Poissonian pump, lifting all restriction on the number of simultaneously interacting atoms. For mean numbers of intracavity atoms between zero and two, highly sub-Poissonian fields are obtained from the Poissonian pumping, with a Mandel QQQ parameter inside the cavity below −0.6-0.6−0.6 under suitable conditions. Simulation of a Hanbury Brown and Twiss-type measurement performed on the cavity emissions recovers the intracavity value of the Mandel QQQ parameter from the intensity correlation function of the output photon stream.
We investigate the effects of sub-Poissonian photon statistics and photon antibunching in the light generation by a photonic-crystal one-atom laser. The physical system consists of a two-level light emitter strongly coupled to a high-quality microcavity engineered within a photonic crystal and coherently driven by a strong external laser field. This study reveals that the electromagnetic environment provided by the photonic crystal facilitates light generation characterized by pronounced sub-Poissonian photon statistics and photon antibunching, and strongly enhanced relative to that from a one-atom laser in a conventional optical cavity. The characteristics of the cavity photon statistics are fundamentally distinct from those of a corresponding microcavity in ordinary vacuum. For large discontinuities in the photon density of states between Mollow spectral components of atomic resonance fluorescence, in the good cavity regime, the photon statistics is sub-Poissonian, in contrast to the case of a conventional cavity where sub-Poissonian photon statistics is present only for a bad cavity. These results suggest the possibility of using a photonic-crystal one-atom laser as an efficient source of nonclassical light.
Harnessing a beam of slow free electrons in artificial photonic structures offers a powerful, tunable platform for generating nonclassical light without the need for heavy physical equipment. Here we present a theory of nonclassical lasing, demonstrating how incoherent electrons in photonic crystal cavities can coherently emit photons through collective dynamics. When photon emission rate exceeds cavity losses, nonclassical lasing with sub-Poissonian photon statistics emerges, driven by multi-photon Rabi oscillations. At specific coupling strengths, quantum state trapping effect emerges, producing high-fidelity Fock states at room temperature (e.g. nearly 90%-fidelity of four photon Fock state). Notably, the frequency of the emitted photons can be readily tuned via the velocity of the injected electrons to match cavity modes. This approach supports photonic integration and offers a scalable, energy-efficient platform for room-temperature quantum light sources and advanced studies in quantum electrodynamics.
In this thesis, we study a system consisting of qubits—two-level quantum systems— interacting in the strong-coupling regime for a finite amount of time with a mode of the electromagnetic field inside a resonator. In particular, we are interested in the dynamics of the photon number and the possibility of controlling its statistics to produce sub-Poissonian light. To describe the system we use quantum trajectory theory where the time evolution of the state vector consists of both a continuous part and jumps, which account for the resonator losses. We also incorporate a variable number of qubits (changing in time) interacting with the mode. A computer simulation was developed and optimised to calculate the quantum trajectories. When one sets the qubits initially to the excited state and fixes the interaction time accordingly, so-called “trapping states” (photon numbers which block the addition of a photon by a single qubit) appear. These states are instrumental in the generation of sub-Poisson fields, for some cases even when the number of interacting qubits follow a Poisson process. We take advantage of the existence of trapping states to implement control protocols based on the measurement of the output field of the resonator, with the objective of lowering the uncertainty in the number of photons. Furthermore, we explore the possibility of creating a source of sub-Poissonian pulses by first using a random interaction time (which bypasses the trapping states) and then utilising the control protocols developed. We are able to achieve fields with a Mandel Q parameter of QM = −0.98 and a photon number of n 68.
We present a theory which can explain the micromaser as well as its optical counterpart, the microlaser, for appropriate values of dissipative parameters. We show that, in both the the cases, the cavity radiation fields can have sub-Poissonian photon statistics. We further analyse if it is possible to attain a Fock state of the radiation field. The microlaser is precluded for such analysics due to the damping of its lasing levels making transitions at optical frequencies. Hence, we focus our attention on the micromaser and our exact simulation of the dynamics shows that it is not possible to generate a Fock state of the cavity radiation field.