Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

arXiv:2102.10350 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Nonclassical light from finite-range interactions in a two-dimensional quantum mirror

Valentin Walther, Lida Zhang, Susanne F. Yelin, Thomas Pohl

Published Feb 15, 2022• 10 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Excitons in a semiconductor monolayer form a collective resonance that can reflect resonant light with extraordinarily high efficiency. Here, we investigate the nonlinear optical properties of such atomistically thin mirrors and show that finite-range interactions between excitons can lead to the generation of highly nonclassical light. We describe two scenarios, in which optical nonlinearities arise either from direct photon coupling to excitons in excited Rydberg states or from resonant two-photon excitation of Rydberg excitons with finite-range interactions. The latter case yields conditions of electromagnetically induced transparency and thereby provides an efficient mechanism for single-photon switching between high transmission and reflectance of the monolayer, with a tunable dynamical timescale of the emerging photon-photon interactions. Remarkably, it turns out that the resulting high degree of photon correlations remains virtually unaffected by Rydberg-state decoherence, in excess of nonradiative decoherence observed for ground-state excitons in two-dimensional semiconductors. This robustness to imperfections suggests a promising approach to quantum photonics at the level of individual photons.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.105.075307

Related papers

Atomically thin semiconductors as nonlinear mirrors

Sina Zeytinoǧlu, Charlaine Roth, Sebastian D. Huber +1 more

We show that a transition-metal dichalcogenide monolayer with a radiatively broadened exciton resonance would exhibit perfect extinction of the transmitted field. This result holds for $s$- or $p$-polarized weak resonant light fields at any incidence angle, due to the conservation of the in-plane momentum of excitons and photons in a flat defect-free two-dimensional crystal. In contrast to extinction experiments with single quantum emitters, exciton-exciton interactions lead to an enhancement of reflection with increasing power for incident fields that are blue detuned with respect to the exciton resonance. By taking into account quantum fluctuations, we show that the extinction of such a nonlinear mirror is limited; for light intensities leading to maximal reflection, the transmitted field is in a multimode squeezed state.

arXiv:1701.08228•Physical Review A•Sep 12, 2017•33 citations

Photon-photon interactions in Rydberg-atom arrays

Lida Zhang, Valentin Walther, Klaus Mølmer +1 more

We investigate the interaction of weak light fields with two-dimensional lattices of atoms with high lying atomic Rydberg states. This system features different interactions that act on disparate length scales, from zero-range defect scattering of atomic excitations and finite-range dipole exchange processes to long-range Rydberg-state interactions, which span the entire array and can block multiple Rydberg excitations. Analyzing their interplay, we identify conditions that yield a nonlinear quantum mirror which coherently splits incident fields into correlated photon-pairs in a single transverse mode, while transmitting single photons unaffected. In particular, we find strong anti-bunching of the transmitted light with equal-time pair correlations that decrease exponentially with an increasing range of the Rydberg blockade. Such strong photon-photon interactions in the absence of photon losses open up promising avenues for the generation and manipulation of quantum light, and the exploration of many-body phenomena with interacting photons.

arXiv:2101.11375•Quantum•Mar 30, 2022•48 citations

Collective behaviour in ensembles of ultracold rubidium atoms

Teodora Ilieva

High optical nonlinearities can be achieved at the single photon level by coupling the photon states to strongly interacting Rydberg excitations under the conditions of electromagnetically induced transparency. The nonlinear response in Rydberg quantum optics comes as a direct result of the long range dipole-dipole interactions via Rydberg blockade and interaction induced dephasing. In this thesis, Rydberg quantum optics experiments are performed with two spatially separated mediums with a nonlinear response at the single photon level. Two ultracold rubidium atomic clouds are tightly confined by a pair of in-vacuo aspheric lenses such that only a few Rydberg excitations can exist in each one of the clouds simultaneously. The long range character of the dipole-dipole interactions leads to the generation of quantum states of light. The effective photon-photon interactions are directly observed as an anti-correlation in the simultaneous photon retrieval as a result of the non resonant van der Waals interactions. The collective Rydberg excitations, stored in the non-overlapping mediums, experience an additional spatial non-uniform phase. In addition, we experimentally characterize the cooperative optical response of a cold atomic medium at a single photon level. This aims to exploit the enhancement of the spontaneous emissions decay rate (superradiance) as a dependence of the number of atoms involved in the ensemble. The observed atomic response in two different regimes gives a further understanding of the system dynamics and unlocks a promising potential route towards the implementation in scalable, multichannel quantum optical devices.

•Jan 1, 2019•0 citations

Controlling Exciton-Phonon Interactions via Electromagnetically Induced Transparency

Valentin Walther, P. Grünwald, Thomas Pohl

Highly excited Rydberg states of excitons in Cu_{2}O semiconductors provide a promising approach to explore and control strong particle interactions in a solid-state environment. A major obstacle has been the substantial absorption background that stems from exciton-phonon coupling and lies under the Rydberg excitation spectrum, weakening the effects of exciton interactions. Here, we demonstrate that two-photon excitation of Rydberg excitons under conditions of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) can be used to control this background. Based on a microscopic theory that describes the known single-photon absorption spectrum, we analyze the conditions under which two-photon EIT permits separating the optical Rydberg excitation from the phonon-induced absorption background, and even suppressing it entir7ely. Our findings thereby pave the way for the exploitation of Rydberg blockade with Cu_{2}O excitons in nonlinear optics and other applications.

arXiv:2007.07076•Physical Review Letters•Oct 20, 2020•23 citations

Optical control of nonlinearly dressed states in an individual quantum dot

P.-L. Ardelt, M. Koller, Tobias Simmet +7 more

We report nonlinear resonance fluorescence of an individual semiconductor quantum dot. By driving a single semiconductor quantum dot via a two-photon transition, we probe the linewidth of two-photon excitation processes and show that, similar to their single-photon counterparts, they are close to being Fourier limited at low temperatures. The evolution of the population of excitonic states with increasing Rabi energy exhibits a clear S-shaped behavior, indicative of the nonlinear response via the two-photon excitation process. Numerical calculations of the nonlinear response using a four-level atomic system representing the manifold of excitonic and biexcitonic states in the quantum dot are in excellent agreement with our experiments and reveal the effect of interactions with LA phonons in the solid-state environment. Finally, we demonstrate the formation of dressed states emerging from a nonlinear two-photon interaction between the quantum dot and the optical excitation field. The nonlinear optical dressing induces a mixing of all four excitonic states that allows direct optical tuning of the polarization selection rules and energies of the dressed states in the artificial atom. We expect our results to play a pivotal role for the generation of nonclassical photon pairs desired for applications in quantum communication and fundamental experiments on quantum optical properties of photons.

arXiv:1511.00503•Physical review. B./Physical review. B•Apr 11, 2016•24 citations

Quantum Light from Lossy Semiconductor Rydberg Excitons

Valentin Walther, Anders Søndberg Sørensen

The emergence of photonic quantum correlations is typically associated with emitters strongly coupled to a photonic mode. Here, we show that semiconductor Rydberg excitons, which are only weakly coupled to a free-space light mode can produce strongly antibunched fields, i.e., quantum light. This effect is fueled by a micron-scale excitation blockade between Rydberg excitons inducing pair-wise polariton scattering events. Photons incident on an exciton resonance are scattered into blue- and red-detuned pairs, which enjoy relative protection from absorption and thus dominate the transmitted light. We demonstrate that this effect persists in the presence of additional phonon coupling, strong nonradiative decay, and across a wide range of experimental parameters. Our results pave the way for the observation of quantum statistics from weakly coupled semiconductor excitons.

arXiv:2211.16658•Physical Review Letters•Jul 21, 2023•3 citations
Excitons in a semiconductor monolayer form a collective resonance that can reflect resonant light with extraordinarily high efficiency. Here, we investigate the nonlinear optical properties of such atomistically thin mirrors and show that finite-range interactions between excitons can lead to the generation of highly nonclassical light. We describe two scenarios, in which optical nonlinearities arise either from direct photon coupling to excitons in excited Rydberg states or from resonant two-photon excitation of Rydberg excitons with finite-range interactions. The latter case yields conditions of electromagnetically induced transparency and thereby provides an efficient mechanism for single-photon switching between high transmission and reflectance of the monolayer, with a tunable dynamical timescale of the emerging photon-photon interactions. Remarkably, it turns out that the resulting high degree of photon correlations remains virtually unaffected by Rydberg-state decoherence, in excess of nonradiative decoherence observed for ground-state excitons in two-dimensional semiconductors. This robustness to imperfections suggests a promising approach to quantum photonics at the level of individual photons.
We show that a transition-metal dichalcogenide monolayer with a radiatively broadened exciton resonance would exhibit perfect extinction of the transmitted field. This result holds for sss- or ppp-polarized weak resonant light fields at any incidence angle, due to the conservation of the in-plane momentum of excitons and photons in a flat defect-free two-dimensional crystal. In contrast to extinction experiments with single quantum emitters, exciton-exciton interactions lead to an enhancement of reflection with increasing power for incident fields that are blue detuned with respect to the exciton resonance. By taking into account quantum fluctuations, we show that the extinction of such a nonlinear mirror is limited; for light intensities leading to maximal reflection, the transmitted field is in a multimode squeezed state.
We investigate the interaction of weak light fields with two-dimensional lattices of atoms with high lying atomic Rydberg states. This system features different interactions that act on disparate length scales, from zero-range defect scattering of atomic excitations and finite-range dipole exchange processes to long-range Rydberg-state interactions, which span the entire array and can block multiple Rydberg excitations. Analyzing their interplay, we identify conditions that yield a nonlinear quantum mirror which coherently splits incident fields into correlated photon-pairs in a single transverse mode, while transmitting single photons unaffected. In particular, we find strong anti-bunching of the transmitted light with equal-time pair correlations that decrease exponentially with an increasing range of the Rydberg blockade. Such strong photon-photon interactions in the absence of photon losses open up promising avenues for the generation and manipulation of quantum light, and the exploration of many-body phenomena with interacting photons.
High optical nonlinearities can be achieved at the single photon level by coupling the photon states to strongly interacting Rydberg excitations under the conditions of electromagnetically induced transparency. The nonlinear response in Rydberg quantum optics comes as a direct result of the long range dipole-dipole interactions via Rydberg blockade and interaction induced dephasing. In this thesis, Rydberg quantum optics experiments are performed with two spatially separated mediums with a nonlinear response at the single photon level. Two ultracold rubidium atomic clouds are tightly confined by a pair of in-vacuo aspheric lenses such that only a few Rydberg excitations can exist in each one of the clouds simultaneously. The long range character of the dipole-dipole interactions leads to the generation of quantum states of light. The effective photon-photon interactions are directly observed as an anti-correlation in the simultaneous photon retrieval as a result of the non resonant van der Waals interactions. The collective Rydberg excitations, stored in the non-overlapping mediums, experience an additional spatial non-uniform phase. In addition, we experimentally characterize the cooperative optical response of a cold atomic medium at a single photon level. This aims to exploit the enhancement of the spontaneous emissions decay rate (superradiance) as a dependence of the number of atoms involved in the ensemble. The observed atomic response in two different regimes gives a further understanding of the system dynamics and unlocks a promising potential route towards the implementation in scalable, multichannel quantum optical devices.
Highly excited Rydberg states of excitons in Cu_{2}O semiconductors provide a promising approach to explore and control strong particle interactions in a solid-state environment. A major obstacle has been the substantial absorption background that stems from exciton-phonon coupling and lies under the Rydberg excitation spectrum, weakening the effects of exciton interactions. Here, we demonstrate that two-photon excitation of Rydberg excitons under conditions of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) can be used to control this background. Based on a microscopic theory that describes the known single-photon absorption spectrum, we analyze the conditions under which two-photon EIT permits separating the optical Rydberg excitation from the phonon-induced absorption background, and even suppressing it entir7ely. Our findings thereby pave the way for the exploitation of Rydberg blockade with Cu_{2}O excitons in nonlinear optics and other applications.
We report nonlinear resonance fluorescence of an individual semiconductor quantum dot. By driving a single semiconductor quantum dot via a two-photon transition, we probe the linewidth of two-photon excitation processes and show that, similar to their single-photon counterparts, they are close to being Fourier limited at low temperatures. The evolution of the population of excitonic states with increasing Rabi energy exhibits a clear S-shaped behavior, indicative of the nonlinear response via the two-photon excitation process. Numerical calculations of the nonlinear response using a four-level atomic system representing the manifold of excitonic and biexcitonic states in the quantum dot are in excellent agreement with our experiments and reveal the effect of interactions with LA phonons in the solid-state environment. Finally, we demonstrate the formation of dressed states emerging from a nonlinear two-photon interaction between the quantum dot and the optical excitation field. The nonlinear optical dressing induces a mixing of all four excitonic states that allows direct optical tuning of the polarization selection rules and energies of the dressed states in the artificial atom. We expect our results to play a pivotal role for the generation of nonclassical photon pairs desired for applications in quantum communication and fundamental experiments on quantum optical properties of photons.
The emergence of photonic quantum correlations is typically associated with emitters strongly coupled to a photonic mode. Here, we show that semiconductor Rydberg excitons, which are only weakly coupled to a free-space light mode can produce strongly antibunched fields, i.e., quantum light. This effect is fueled by a micron-scale excitation blockade between Rydberg excitons inducing pair-wise polariton scattering events. Photons incident on an exciton resonance are scattered into blue- and red-detuned pairs, which enjoy relative protection from absorption and thus dominate the transmitted light. We demonstrate that this effect persists in the presence of additional phonon coupling, strong nonradiative decay, and across a wide range of experimental parameters. Our results pave the way for the observation of quantum statistics from weakly coupled semiconductor excitons.