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arXiv:2504.14974 · Physical Review A

Nonreciprocal photon blockade induced by parametric amplification in an asymmetrical cavity

Shao-xiong Wu, Xue-Chen Gao, Huanhuan Cheng, Cheng‐Hua Bai

Published Apr 18, 2025• 13 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We propose a scheme to generate and manipulate nonreciprocal photon blockade effect in an asymmetrical Fabry-P\'erot cavity, which consists of a single two-level atom and a second-order nonlinear medium. By utilizing the intrinsic spatial asymmetry of cavity and applying a parametric amplification pumping laser to the nonlinear medium, we can realize direction-dependent single-photon and two-photon blockade effects. For nonreciprocal single-photon blockade, our proposal is robust across a wide range of parameters, such as the cavity or atomic detuning, coupling strength, and atomic decay. Within similar parameter ranges, nonreciprocal two-photon blockade can be achieved and modulated by finely adjusting the parametric amplification pumping. Our project offers a feasible access to generating high-quality and tunable nonreciprocal single- or two-photon sources and paves a new avenue for investigating the nonreciprocity of photon quantum statistical properties.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.111.043714

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We propose a scheme to generate and manipulate nonreciprocal photon blockade effect in an asymmetrical Fabry-P'erot cavity, which consists of a single two-level atom and a second-order nonlinear medium. By utilizing the intrinsic spatial asymmetry of cavity and applying a parametric amplification pumping laser to the nonlinear medium, we can realize direction-dependent single-photon and two-photon blockade effects. For nonreciprocal single-photon blockade, our proposal is robust across a wide range of parameters, such as the cavity or atomic detuning, coupling strength, and atomic decay. Within similar parameter ranges, nonreciprocal two-photon blockade can be achieved and modulated by finely adjusting the parametric amplification pumping. Our project offers a feasible access to generating high-quality and tunable nonreciprocal single- or two-photon sources and paves a new avenue for investigating the nonreciprocity of photon quantum statistical properties.
We propose a scheme to manipulate strong and nonreciprocal photon blockades in asymmetrical Fabry-Perot cavity with a Λ-type three-level atom. Utilizing the mechanisms of both conventional and unconventional blockade, the strong photon blockade is achieved by the anharmonic eigenenergy spectrum brought by Λ-type atom and the destructive quantum interference effect induced by a microwave field. By optimizing the system parameters, the manipulation of strong photon blockade over a wide range of cavity detuning can be realized. Using spatial symmetry breaking introduced by the asymmetry of cavity, the direction-dependent nonreciprocal photon blockade can be achieved, and the nonreciprocity can reach the maximum at optimal cavity detuning. In particular, manipulating the occurring position of nonreciprocal photon blockade can be implemented by simply adjusting the cavity detuning. Our scheme provides feasible access for generating high-quality nonreciprocal single-photon sources.
We propose a scheme to realize tunable and strong nonreciprocal photon blockade (PB) in an asymmetric Fabry-Pérot cavity. The setup consists of a single-mode optical cavity trapping a two-level atom, with the cavity coherently driven by a laser and the atom pumped by an auxiliary control field of the same frequency. By engineering quantum interference between multiple excitation pathways by adjusting the amplitude and relative phase of the control laser, we identify two distinct optimal control conditions that enable directional suppression of two-photon states. Under optimal control conditions, strong nonreciprocal PB is achieved, with a nonreciprocal ratio exceeding 30 dB over a broad operational bandwidth. The proposed protocol requires only standard coherent laser sources and is compatible with current cavity QED experimental setups, offering a practical and scalable platform for nonreciprocal quantum photonics.
We improve the nonreciprocal unconventional photon blockade (UCPB) in an asymmetrical single-mode cavity with two asymmetrical arranged two-level atoms (TLAs) where cavity and atom spatial symmetry breakings are involved in. In order to get direction-dependent UCPB in asymmetrical system, we deduce two restrictions of frequency and intensity through the steady solution of the cavity QED system analytically. The former restriction is exactly the same as that of a single-atom case, and the latter restriction combined with both spatial asymmetries. Controllable UCPB in this model shows an improving nonreciprocal UCPB with wider operating regime which is promoted by two asymmetrical arranged atoms. The most innovation of this work is that the contributions of two spatial symmetry breakings are figured out clearly and they play different roles in nonreciprocal UCPB. The cavity spatial symmetry breaking and weak nonlinearity are essential to quantum nonreciprocity, while the atoms spatial symmetry is not and it only can promote such nonreciprocal UCPB. Our findings show a prospective access to manipulate quantum nonreciprocity by a couple of atoms.
We propose a scheme to achieve the simultaneous nonreciprocal photon blockade of two microring resonators in an all-optical system without any rotating parts. By unidirectionally parametrically pumping a ${\ensuremath{\chi}}^{(2)}$-nonlinear resonator with a classical coherent field, the counterclockwise mode in the resonator is exposed to the parametric amplification process when a forward signal field is input in another resonator, but not the case for a backward signal field. This leads to different quantum interference effects among distinct excitation paths for two optical modes, which is the essential reason for simultaneous nonreciprocal photon blockade. We analytically give the optimal parameter conditions to achieve simultaneous strong photon blockade with the parametric amplification. Furthermore, the nonreciprocity is simultaneously enhanced through tuning the amplitude of input signal. Our work provides an avenue to realize simultaneous nonreciprocal single-photon devices without moving parts and may have potential applications in many-body quantum information processing and quantum communication.
We propose a scheme to realize nonreciprocal photon blockade and directional amplification in a spinning resonator with clockwise and counterclockwise traveling modes coupled to a stationary two-level atom. By manipulating the rotational frequency of the resonator, the two-level atom can be resonant with one of the traveling modes and largely detuned from the other one. Nonreciprocal conventional photon blockade is induced by the difference of the detunings between the two-level atom and the optical modes traveling in different directions. Besides that, nonreciprocal unconventional photon blockade (UPB) based on the quantum interference can also be observed in the system. Based on the mechanism for nonreciprocal UPB, directional amplification of the blockaded photons is predicted by driving the spinning resonator and stationary two-level atom simultaneously. Our proposal will be applicable to achieve highly efficient nonreciprocal single-photon devices for applications in chiral quantum information processing.
Inspired by the advantage of unconventional photon blockade (UCPB), we propose a simple cavity-driven quantum electrodynamics model composed of a single two-level atom embedded in an asymmetrical Fabry-Perot cavity. We derive the necessary matching conditions of frequency and intensity required for unconventional photon blockade. In the asymmetric cavity, the optimal atom-cavity coupling strength to get UCPB is related to the driving direction, which causes the equal-time second-order correlation function g(2)(0){g}^{(2)}(0)g(2)(0) of the cavity field depending on the driving direction, too. Due to the direction dependent effect, the output photons can be bunched in one direction incident while they are antibunched in the opposite direction incident, which is the so-called nonreciprocal UCPB (NUCPB). A giant NUCPB can be obtained under the appropriate parameter regime, where the output photons are fully antibunching in the opposite driving case. Our findings show a prospective path to producing giant quantum nonreciprocity.