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The Rochester Conferences on Coherence and Quantum Optics and the Quantum Information and Measurement meeting

Strongly interacting photons in quantum nonlinear medium

Mikhail D. Lukin

Published Jan 1, 2013• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The realization of strong nonlinear interactions between individual light quanta (photons) is a long-standing goal in optical science and engineering, being of both fundamental and technological significance. We describe and demonstrate a medium that is nonlinear at the level of individual quanta, exhibiting strong absorption and phase shift for photon pairs while remaining transparent to single photons. The quantum nonlinearity is obtained by coherently coupling slowly propagating photons to strongly interacting atomic Rydberg states in a cold, dense atomic gas. Finally, we will discuss our progress towards realization of integrated quantum photonic systems, based on deterministic coupling of individual atoms and atom-like systems to photonic crystal cavities.

DOI
10.1364/cqo.2013.m4a.1

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The realization of strong nonlinear interactions between individual light quanta (photons) is a long-standing goal in optical science and engineering, being of both fundamental and technological significance. We describe and demonstrate a medium that is nonlinear at the level of individual quanta, exhibiting strong absorption and phase shift for photon pairs while remaining transparent to single photons. The quantum nonlinearity is obtained by coherently coupling slowly propagating photons to strongly interacting atomic Rydberg states in a cold, dense atomic gas. Finally, we will discuss our progress towards realization of integrated quantum photonic systems, based on deterministic coupling of individual atoms and atom-like systems to photonic crystal cavities.
Although photons do no a ect each other in vacuum, interactions between individual photons could enable a wide variety of scienti c and engineering applications. Here we report on the creation of a quantum nonlinear medium with large photon-photon interactions at the single photon level. Our approach relies on Electromagnetically Induced Transparency (EIT) techniques, in which individual photons are coherently mapped onto strongly interacting Rydberg atoms. Under EIT conditions, photons traveling in the medium are best described as part-matter part-light quantum particles, called polaritons, which experience long-range interactions through the Rydberg blockade. In particular, we demonstrate coherent photon-photon interactions, akin to those associated with conventional massive particles, paving the way for novel photonics states and quantum simulation with light.
Most phenomena around us can be explained by classical optics since photons interact weakly with atoms. When the interaction is strong enough where one photon affects the properties of other photons, we go to the regime of quantum photon-photon nonlinear optics. The work in this thesis explores this regime of physics. This paves the path to exploring strongly interacting many-body physics with photons which is still a largely unexplored domain. The ability to control strongly interacting photons is also of central importance in quantum science and engineering. We use the approach of Electromagnetically Induced Transparency (EIT) in atomic ensembles to create strong interactions and demonstrate coherent control between single photons. Using EIT, we coherently map single photons onto the atoms which travel as coupled excitations of light and matter called dark-state polaritons. When the medium is optically dense, the polariton propagates as a massive particle with a velocity that is much smaller than the speed of light. These polaritons interact with each other via their atomic component. In this thesis, we show robust symmetry-protected collisions between photons that imprint a large phase of π/2 with little loss and extend the nature of photon-photon interactions to the repulsive regime, which are essential for quantum communication and metrology. We use the technique of photon blockade to make a fast optical detector of Rydberg states, directly demonstrating the use of quantum nonlinear optics for quantum computation. We also study the extensions of the attractive and repulsive photons for three particles shedding light into the formation of bound states and crystals of photons and paving the way to studying many-body physics of photons.
Rydberg atoms have emerged as a versatile platform for quantum optics due to their exaggerated properties, particularly their strong long-range interactions, which enable a new regime of light-matter interaction. By mapping the interactions between Rydberg atoms onto photons, effective photon-photon interactions can be realized at the single-photon level, thereby overcoming the intrinsic weakness of conventional optical nonlinearities. In this review, we first introduce the fundamental physical principles of Rydberg-mediated quantum optics, and then discuss some key developments, including single-photon engineering, photonic quantum gates, contactless nonlinear optics, and quantum entanglement, providing a comprehensive overview of the current state and prospects of this rapidly developing field.
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