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arXiv:1910.08445 · Physical Review A

Amplification and cross-Kerr nonlinearity in waveguide quantum electrodynamics

Athul Vinu, Dibyendu Roy

Published May 4, 2020• 9 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We explore amplification and cross-Kerr nonlinearity by a three-level emitter (3LE) embedded in a waveguide and driven by two light beams. The coherent amplification and cross-Kerr nonlinearity were demonstrated in recent experiments, respectively, with a $\mathsf{V}$ and a ladder-type 3LE coupled to an open superconducting transmission line carrying two microwave fields. Here, we consider $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Lambda}},\mathsf{V}$, and ladder-type 3LE, and compare the efficiency of coherent and incoherent amplification as well as the magnitude of the cross-Kerr phase shift in all three emitters. We apply the Heisenberg-Langevin equations approach to investigate the scattering of a probe and a drive beam, both initially in coherent states. We particularly calculate the regime of the probe and drive powers when the 3LE acts most efficiently as a coherent amplifier and derive the second-order coherence of amplified probe photons. Finally, we apply the Kramers-Kronig relations to correlate the amplitude and phase response of the probe beam, which are used in finding the coherent amplification and the cross-Kerr phase shift in these systems.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.101.053812

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We explore amplification and cross-Kerr nonlinearity by a three-level emitter (3LE) embedded in a waveguide and driven by two light beams. The coherent amplification and cross-Kerr nonlinearity were demonstrated in recent experiments, respectively, with a V\mathsf{V}V and a ladder-type 3LE coupled to an open superconducting transmission line carrying two microwave fields. Here, we consider \ensuremathΛ,V\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Lambda}},\mathsf{V}\ensuremathΛ,V, and ladder-type 3LE, and compare the efficiency of coherent and incoherent amplification as well as the magnitude of the cross-Kerr phase shift in all three emitters. We apply the Heisenberg-Langevin equations approach to investigate the scattering of a probe and a drive beam, both initially in coherent states. We particularly calculate the regime of the probe and drive powers when the 3LE acts most efficiently as a coherent amplifier and derive the second-order coherence of amplified probe photons. Finally, we apply the Kramers-Kronig relations to correlate the amplitude and phase response of the probe beam, which are used in finding the coherent amplification and the cross-Kerr phase shift in these systems.
While the theoretical studies in waveguide quantum electrodynamics predominate with single-photon and two-photon Fock-state (photon number states) input, the experiments are primarily carried out using a faint coherent light. We create a theoretical toolbox to compare and contrast linear and nonlinear light scattering by a two-level or a three-level emitter embedded in an open waveguide carrying Fock-state or coherent-state inputs. We particularly investigate light transport properties and the Kerr and cross-Kerr nonlinearities of the medium for the two types of inputs. A generalized description of the Kerr and cross-Kerr effect for different types of inputs is formulated using the first-order correlation function to compare the Kerr and cross-Kerr nonlinearity between two photons in these models.
Abstract We theoretically investigate the self-nonlinear and cross-nonlinear responses of the Λ-type, V-type, and ladder-type three-level atomic systems. The analytical solutions of the cross-nonlinearity are obtained by using an iterative method. These analytical expressions reveal that the atomic decay rates and two-photon resonance are closely related to the cross-nonlinear response. For the Λ-type system, the relaxation rate between the ground-state sublevels determines the amplitude and linewidth of the cross-nonlinearity. For the ladder-type system, the lifetime of the upper excited state governs the amplitude and linewidth of the cross-nonlinearity. In both systems, the amplitude of the cross-nonlinearity is significantly enhanced, and the linewidth is greatly compressed simultaneously. In contrast, for the V-type three-level system, the amplitude and linewidth of the cross-nonlinearity are related to the spontaneous emission rate of the excited states, where neither the amplitude enhancement nor the linewidth compression is observed. We conclude that the cross-nonlinear response can reach or even exceed the linear response in the Λ-type system when the relaxation rate between the ground states is sufficiently small, or in the ladder-type system when the spontaneous emission rate of the upper excited state is sufficiently small. Compared with the crossnonlinearity, the self-nonlinearity is related to the Rabi frequency and detuning of the coupling field. Its amplitude decreases with the increase of the coupling Rabi frequency, while it can be increased to a certain extent with the increase of the coupling detuning. Our results provide a theoretical basis for the optimization and application of strong nonlinear effects in three-level atomic systems.
We address recent advances in quantum optics with propagating microwaves\nin superconducting circuits. This research field exploits on the fact that the coupling between a superconducting artificial atom and propagating microwave photons in a one-dimensional (1D) open transmission line can be made strong enough to observe quantum effects, without using any cavity to confine the microwave photons.\nWe embed an artificial atom, a superconducting transmon qubit, in a 1D open\ntransmission line and investigate the scattering properties of coherent microwaves. When an input coherent state, with an average photon number much less than 1, is on resonance with the artificial atom, we observe extinction of up to 99% in the forward propagating field. We observe the strong nonlinearity of the artificial atom and under strong driving we observe the Mollow triplet. We also study the statistics of the reflected and transmitted beams, which are predicted to be nonclassical states. In particular, we demonstrate photon antibunching in the reflected beam by measuring the second-order correlation function. By applying a second control tone, we observe the Autler-Townes splitting and a giant cross-Kerr effect.\nFurthermore, we demonstrate fast operation of a single-photon router using\nthe Autler-Townes splitting. This device provides important steps towards the realization of a quantum network. This thesis describes the motivation, theoretical background, design, implementation and measurement results.
We propose a scheme to enable a controllable cross-Kerr interaction between microwave photons in a circuit quantum electrodynamics (QED) system. In this scheme we use two transmission-line resonators (TLRs) and one superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) type charge qubit, which acts as an artificial atom. It is shown that in the dispersive regime of the circuit-QED system, a controllable cross-Kerr interaction can be obtained by properly preparing the initial state of the qubit, and a large cross-phase shift between two microwave fields in the two TLRs can then be reached. Based on this cross-Kerr interaction, we show how to create a macroscopic entangled state between the two TLRs.
We investigate the effective interaction between two microwave fields, mediated by a transmon-type superconducting artificial atom which is strongly coupled to a coplanar transmission line. The interaction between the fields and atom produces an effective cross-Kerr coupling. We demonstrate average cross-Kerr phase shifts of up to 20 degrees per photon with both coherent microwave fields at the single-photon level. Our results provide an important step toward quantum applications with propagating microwave photons.
In a preceding paper we introduced a formalism to study the scattering of low-intensity fields from a system of multilevel emitters embedded in a three-dimensional (3D3\mathrm{D}3D) dielectric medium. Here we show how this photon-scattering relation can be used to analyze the scattering of single photons and weak coherent states from any generic multilevel quantum emitter coupled to a one-dimensional (1D1\mathrm{D}1D) waveguide. The reduction of the photon-scattering relation to 1D1\mathrm{D}1D waveguides provides a direct solution of the scattering problem involving low-intensity fields in the waveguide QED regime. To show how our formalism works, we consider examples of multilevel emitters and evaluate the transmitted and reflected field amplitude. Furthermore, we extend our study to include the dynamical response of the emitters for scattering of a weak coherent photon pulse. As our photon-scattering relation is based on the Heisenberg picture, it is quite useful for problems involving photodetection in the waveguide architecture. We show this by considering a specific problem of state generation by photodetection in a multilevel emitter, where our formalism exhibits its full potential. Since the considered emitters are generic, the 1D1\mathrm{D}1D results apply to a plethora of physical systems such as atoms, ions, quantum dots, superconducting qubits, and nitrogen-vacancy centers coupled to a 1D1\mathrm{D}1D waveguide or transmission line.