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arXiv:2402.12894 · Physical Review A

Enhanced photon-pair generation under coherent control

Ke-Shuang Cui, Xiaojun Zhang, Jin‐Hui Wu

Published Jun 3, 2024• 1 citation
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Abstract

The generation of the narrowband strong-correlated biphotons via spontaneous four-wave mixing can be effectively controlled and enhanced by an additional driving field which drives a transition with its upper level being a Rydberg state. We study the properties of the noise of the generated biphotons and show that in the region of weak pumping and low atomic density, a high degree of the photon correlation is maintained with the photon-pair generation rate significantly enhanced.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.109.063701

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The generation of the narrowband strong-correlated biphotons via spontaneous four-wave mixing can be effectively controlled and enhanced by an additional driving field which drives a transition with its upper level being a Rydberg state. We study the properties of the noise of the generated biphotons and show that in the region of weak pumping and low atomic density, a high degree of the photon correlation is maintained with the photon-pair generation rate significantly enhanced.
Tunable Rydberg interactions in cold atoms can be used to generate strongly correlated photon pairs through a spontaneous four-wave-mixing process in which all driving fields are allowed to work on resonance. The scheme relies on electromagnetically induced transparency and an imbalanced dark state with most atoms trapped in a ground state and a weakly populated Rydberg state. We show in particular that the combination of these two effects results in negligible linear absorption and Raman gain at the Stokes and anti-Stokes frequencies of generated photon pairs, while the nonlocal (Rydberg) nonlinearities contribute significantly to the enhancement of photon-pair generation rates and cross correlations at very low pump strengths and optical depths.
We theoretically investigate the coherent manipulation of biphoton generation via spontaneous four-wave mixing in a cavity-QED system with a single atom. The atom is driven by pumping, coupling, and driving fields, and the generation of the Stokes and anti-Stokes photons are enhanced by two cavities. By solving the master equation in the steady state, we analyze the spectral brightness, as well as the degree of the auto-correlation and cross-correlation. Our results show that when the pumping and driving fields are in two-photon resonance, the dark state established between the ground and Rydberg states. efficiently enhances the controllability of the driving field over the biphoton generation and the quantum statistics. In contrast, under large two-photon detuning, the control capability of the driving field is significantly reduced. The coupling field, which directly relates to the electromagnetically induced transparency, modifies the linewidth of the biphoton, while the atom-cavity coupling strength only changes the brightness without affecting the linewidth.
Driven by the desire of narrow-band photon pairs source, in this Mphil thesis work, we demonstrate the generation of photon pairs with controllable coherence time up to 1.72 microseconds, using spontaneous four-wave mixing with electromagnetically induced transparency in a laser-cooled atomic ensemble with an optical depth (OD) as high as 130. At such a high OD, we find that the pump laser intensity profile has a significant effect on the time-frequency entangled two-photon waveform. We also confirm the quantum particle nature of heralded narrow-band single photons generated from this source.
We study narrowband biphoton generation from spontaneous four-wave mixing with electromagnetically induced transparency in a laser-cooled atomic ensemble. We compare two formalisms in the interaction and Heisenberg pictures and find that they agree in the low-gain regime but disagree in the high-gain regime. We extend both formalisms to account for the nonuniformity of the atomic density and the driving laser fields. We find that for a fixed optical depth and a weak and far-detuned pump laser beam, the two-photon waveform is independent of the atomic density distribution. However, the spatial profiles of the two driving laser beams have significant effects on the biphoton temporal waveform. We predict that waveform shaping in the time domain can be achieved by controlling the spatial profiles of the driving laser fields.
The generation of nonclassical photon pairs with a long coherence time is key for applications that range from fundamental to quantum communication and metrology. Spontaneous four-wave mixing with electromagnetically induced transparency has been demonstrated as one of the most efficient methods; however, narrowing the bandwidth and producing photon pairs with a temporal length beyond 1 μs remains a technical challenge due to noise considerations and the need for cold atoms with a high optical depth (OD). In this work, we demonstrate the generation of narrowband photon pairs with a controllable coherence time up to 1.72 μs in a laser-cooled atomic ensemble with an OD as high as 130. At such a high OD, we find that the pump laser field spatial profile has a significant effect on the time–frequency entangled two-photon waveform. We also confirm the quantum particle nature of heralded narrowband single photons generated from this source.