Photon blockade with a four-level atom coupled to a microcavity

Wei Zhang, Tie Wang, Shutian Liu +2 more

Kevin M. Birnbaum, Andreea Boca, Ryan Miller +3 more

Hiroshi Ajiki, Hajime Ishihara

We propose a new type of entangled photon generation from a three-level V-type atom in a microcavity in the cavity QED scheme. In the strong-coupling regime, almost all photon pairs are entangled in polarization due to the photon blockade effect.

Michal Bajcsy, Arka Majumdar, Armand Rundquist +1 more

We study the photon blockade phenomenon in a nanocavity containing a single four-level quantum emitter. By numerically simulating the second-order autocorrelation function of the intra-cavity field with realistic parameters achievable in a state-of-the-art photonic-crystal nanocavity, we show that significant photon blockade effects appear even outside the strong coupling regime. We introduce an intuitive picture of the photon blockade that explains the performance difference between the two-level and the four-level emitter schemes reported in previous works, as well as why—in contrast to a cavity containing a two-level atom—signatures of photon blockade appear and should be experimentally observable outside the strong coupling regime when a four-level emitter is used. Finally, we show that thanks to the emitter–cavity coupling achievable in a nanocavity, photon blockade can be realized despite the large frequency difference between the relevant optical transitions in realistic four-level emitters, which has so far prevented the experimental realization of this photon blockade scheme.

Qinghong Liao, Jian Wen, Weican Deng

Yuanchuan Li, Zhihai Yao, Hui Min Yang

In this paper, the photon blockade effect in a nondegenerate four-wave-mixing system embedded with a two-level atom has been studied. By using an analytical calculation and numerical analysis, we find that both one-photon and two-photon blockade effects could be realized in this system by adjusting the parameters of the system. That is, (i) when the four-wave-mixing interaction and the atom-cavity coupling strength are not equal, the system can realize a one-photon blockade; (ii) when they are consistent with each other, the system can realize a two-photon blockade. In addition, we also discuss the influence of different parameters on the photon blockade effect in detail. The results show that the system constructed in this paper not only could enhance the one-photon blockade effect decisively, but also could implement a two-photon blockade easily with a well-designed energy-level structure, and evidently the blockade effect depends on the parameters of the system. All the results may provide theoretical references for single-photon and multiphoton sources or devices in designing future experiments and practical applications.