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Frontiers in Optics

Interaction-free All-optical Switches for Quantum Applications

Yu-Ping Huang, Abijith S. Kowligy, Yu-Zhu Sun, Dmitry Strekalov, Prem Kumar

Published Jan 1, 2014• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We present a realization of all-optical switching in whispering-gallery-mode microcavities. Operating without the control and probe light beams overlapping in the cavity (in the asymptotic limit), such switches are ideal for use with quantum signals.
DOI
10.1364/fio.2014.fm4b.2

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We present an all-optical control device in which coupling a weak control optical field into a high-QQQ lithium niobate whispering-gallery-mode microcavity decouples it from a signal field due to nonlinear optical interactions. This results in switching and modulation of the signal with low-power control pulses. In the quantum limit, the underlying nonlinear-optical process corresponds to the quantum Zeno blockade. Its ``interaction-free'' nature effectively alleviates loss and decoherence for the signal waves. This work therefore presents experimental progress towards acquiring large phase shifts with few photons or even at the single-photon level.
Quantum Zeno blockade allows all-optical switching in a counterintuitive “interaction-free” manner. Using a lithium-niobate microdisk cavity nanofabricated on chip, we have observed phase matched sum-frequency generation and interaction-free switching between optical pulses in two tightly confined whispering-gallery modes. We have also verified that our device is suitable for nonlinear operations in a single-photon regime. Our results point to a scalable, chip-integrated platform for nonlinear optics extendable to the quantum regime.
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