Coherent Control of Single Photons

Gerard J Milburn

Shengwang Du

Debabrata Goswami, Syed Abbas Hosseini

A multiphoton density-matrix approach explores the effects of ultrafast shaped pulses for two-level systems that do not have a single photon resonance, and show that many multiphoton results are surprisingly similar to the single-photon results. These conditions thus allow extending the single-photon coherent control ideas to develop multiphoton coherent control.

Seyed Abbas Hosseini, Debabrata Goswami

We explore the effects of ultrafast shaped pulses for two-level systems that do not have a single-photon resonance, by developing a multiphoton density-matrix approach. We take advantage of the fact that the dynamics of the intermediate virtual states are absent within our laser pulse time scales. Under these conditions, the multiphoton results are similar to those for a single photon, and it is possible to extend the single-photon coherent control ideas to develop multiphoton coherent control.

Shengwang Du

Jing Lu, Lan Zhou, Le‐Man Kuang +1 more

We propose a single-photon router using a single atom with an inversion center coupled to quantum multichannels made of coupled-resonator waveguides. We show that the spontaneous emission of the atom can direct single photons from one quantum channel into another. The on-demand classical field perfectly switches off the single-photon routing due to the quantum interference in the atomic amplitudes of optical transitions. Total reflections in the incident channel are due to the photonic bound state in the continuum. Two virtual channels, named the scatter-free and controllable channels, are found, which are coherent superpositions of quantum channels. Any incident photon in the scatter-free channel is totally transmitted. The propagating states of the controllable channel are orthogonal to those of the scatter-free channel. Single photons in the controllable channel can be perfectly reflected or transmitted by the atom.