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Physical Review Letters

Optical Bloch Oscillations and Zener Tunneling with Nonclassical Light

Stefano Longhi

Published Nov 6, 2008• 81 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A quantum theory of optical Bloch oscillations and Zener tunneling (ZT) in arrays of coupled waveguides is theoretically presented, and the particlelike behavior of photons undergoing ZT is highlighted. In singly-periodic arrays excited by a photon-number-state input beam, each photon behaves as a classical particle which independently undergoes a coin-toss ZT event with a probability described by classical Zener theory. In binary arrays, excitation with two tilted beams enables us to observe the Hong-Ou-Mandel interference for two photons undergoing Bloch-Zener oscillations.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.101.193902

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A quantum theory of optical Bloch oscillations and Zener tunneling (ZT) in arrays of coupled waveguides is theoretically presented, and the particlelike behavior of photons undergoing ZT is highlighted. In singly-periodic arrays excited by a photon-number-state input beam, each photon behaves as a classical particle which independently undergoes a coin-toss ZT event with a probability described by classical Zener theory. In binary arrays, excitation with two tilted beams enables us to observe the Hong-Ou-Mandel interference for two photons undergoing Bloch-Zener oscillations.
Classical and quantum interference of light propagating in arrays of coupled waveguides and undergoing multiband optical Bloch oscillations (BOs) with negligible Zener tunneling is theoretically investigated. In particular, it is shown that Mach-Zehnder-like interference effects spontaneously arise in multiband BOs owing to beam splitting and subsequent beam recombination occurring in one BO cycle. As a noteworthy example of quantum interference, we discuss the doubling of interference fringes in photon counting rates for a correlated photon pair undergoing two-band BOs, a phenomenon analogous to the manifestation of the de Broglie wavelength of an entangled biphoton state observed in quantum Mach-Zehnder interferometry.
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Atomic media are important in optics research since they can be conveniently manipulated and controlled due to easy selection of atomic levels, laser fields, and the active adjustment of many system parameters. In this paper, we investigate optical Bloch oscillation, Zener tunneling, and Bloch–Zener oscillation in atomic media both theoretically and numerically. We use two coupling fields to prepare the dynamical optical lattice through interference. To induce a transverse force, we make the frequency difference between the two coupling fields increase linearly along the longitudinal coordinate. These phenomena have potential application for beam splitters and optical interconnects, and are helpful for investigating quantum analogies.
Coherent transport of quantum particles in binary superlattices driven by an ac force can realize a kind of quantum walk (QW) that can be referred to as Bloch–Zener QW. In this regime, the particle wavepacket undergoes a sequence of Zener tunnelling events that mimic a discrete QW on a lattice, provided that the impulse of the ac force over one semi-cycle of oscillation is properly adjusted. In the Bloch–Zener QW, the coin states are related to the particle occupation of the two minibands, and thus it does not require any internal degrees of freedom of the particle.
We show that classical light diffraction in arrays of specially modulated coupled optical waveguides can simulate the quantum process of two-mode squeezing in nonlinear media, with the waveguide mode amplitudes corresponding the signal and idler photon numbers. The whole Fock space is mapped by a set of arrays, where each array represents the states with a fixed difference between the signal and idler photon numbers. We demonstrate a transition from photon number growth to Bloch oscillations with periodical revivals of an arbitrary input state, associated with an increase of the effective phase mismatch between the pump and the squeezed photons.
It is well known that an electron in a single-band tight-binding lattice coherently driven by an external dc electric field undergoes Bloch oscillations. In the framework of the extended Hubbard model, here it is shown theoretically that two strongly interacting electrons with on-site and nearest-neighbor site repulsion undergo a sequence of Bloch oscillations and Zener tunneling, the so-called Bloch-Zener oscillations (BZOs), among different narrow bands formed by bound particle states. Such a kind of BZOs arise because of nearest-neighbor site particle interaction and are thus rather distinct than BZOs observed for a single electron in biperiodic lattices supporting two single-particle minibands.