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

Single-photon nonlinear optics in passive photonic nanocavities

Dario Gerace

Published Jan 1, 2013• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

It is shown that strong enhancement of native optical nonlinearities in photonic resonators made of ordinary nonlinear materials can lead to single-photon emission via photon blockade of a resonant driving laser. A theoretical characterization is given by means of the second-order correlation function as the main figure of merit, where major sources of loss are fully taken into account within a standard master equation treatment.

DOI
10.1364/cqo.2013.m6.47

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It is shown that strong enhancement of native optical nonlinearities in photonic resonators made of ordinary nonlinear materials can lead to single-photon emission via photon blockade of a resonant driving laser. A theoretical characterization is given by means of the second-order correlation function as the main figure of merit, where major sources of loss are fully taken into account within a standard master equation treatment.
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We propose the use of nanostructured photonic nanocavities made of ${\ensuremath{\chi}}^{(2)}$ nonlinear materials as prospective passive devices to generate strongly sub-Poissonian light via single-photon blockade of an input coherent field. The simplest scheme is based on the requirement that the nanocavity be doubly resonant, i.e., possess cavity modes with good spatial overlap at both the fundamental and second-harmonic frequencies. We discuss the feasibility of this scheme with state-of-the art nanofabrication technology and the possibility to use it as a passive single-photon source on demand.
Achieving the regime of single-photon nonlinearities in photonic devices by just exploiting the intrinsic high-order susceptibilities of conventional materials would open the door to practical semiconductor-based quantum photonic technologies. Here we show that this regime can be achieved in a triply resonant integrated photonic device made of two coupled ring resonators, in a material platform displaying an intrinsic third-order nonlinearity. By strongly driving one of the three resonances of the system, a weak coherent probe at one of the others results in a strongly suppressed two-photon probability at the output, evidenced by an antibunched second-order correlation function at zero-time delay under continuous wave driving.
The single‐photon blockade effect arising in a cavity containing a quantum well and interacting with squeezed light, resulting from a down‐conversion process through a nonlinear medium, is investigated. Optical parametric oscillator (OPO) materials with positive and negative second‐order susceptibilities are considered. By solving the master equation analytically in the weak‐driving limit and calculating the second‐order equal‐time correlation function, it is found that strong photon antibunching can be achieved in this system with weak excitonic nonlinearity or squeezed light via a destructive quantum interference mechanism. The optimal conditions for the photon blockade are derived analytically and discussed in details. Unlike the excitonic nonlinearity, a strong photon blockade occurs with the squeezed light at total or quasitotal resonance, even in the weak coupling regime, using an OPO material with negative second‐order nonlinear susceptibility. By acting on the driving coherent pump frequency, the control of the cavity output is achieved and the scheme can serve as a tunable single‐photon emission source.
The photon blockade is a key quantum-nonlinear effect in which the admission of a second photon to a resonator is inhibited, enabling on-demand single-photon emission. Its practical use is limited by the weak intrinsic nonlinearity of most optical platforms. We address this limitation in a coupled-cavity architecture by engineering two-photon dissipation as a control resource rather than a detrimental loss. Within a quantum-master-equation framework, we model single-photon loss, engineered two-photon decay, and pure dephasing, and analyze their joint impact on the steady-state statistics of the driven cavities. We track the zero-delay correlation, photon populations, and detuning/drive dependences under distinct driving schemes (both cavities driven vs. single-cavity drive with. The results show that adding two-photon dissipation (i) suppresses multiphoton occupation and strengthens antibunching, (ii) broadens the operating window in detuning and drive amplitude, and (iii) improves robustness against moderate dephasing and device imperfections. A mechanism analysis attributes these gains to interference between coherent second-order processes and dissipative selection that stabilizes the odd-photon manifold. The study yields design guidelines for realizing stable, cavity-based single-photon sources using dissipation engineering.
Analogous to Coulomb blockade for electrons, photon blockade is a key quantum optical effect in which the presence of one photon prevents the transmission of subsequent ones through a nonlinear medium. Beyond its fundamental interest, photon and multi-photon blockade are actively studied as mechanisms for generating technologically-relevant quantum states of light. Although photon blockade typically requires achieving strong light-matter coupling, increasing the number of atoms fails to enhance antibunching. Here, we analyze the optical transmission properties of a quantum resonator that embeds a two-photon-coupled ensemble of emitters, combining an approximate analytical approach with full quantum numerical simulations. We show that when light and matter are coupled via a two-photon interaction, both single- and multi-photon blockade can benefit from a collective enhancement. We propose different driving schemes in which the second or third-order correlation functions are strongly suppressed with increasing atom number. Differently from established methods, this collective enhancement of non-classical properties occurs with unitary transmission and is ultimately constrained only by decoherence. This demonstrates that collective two-photon couplings are a powerful mechanism for realizing photon blockade even in platforms where individual strong coupling is not achievable.