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Physical Review A

Quantum-interference-assisted photon blockade in a cavity via parametric interactions

Bijita Sarma, Amarendra K. Sarma

Published Nov 13, 2017• 88 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We propose a scheme to achieve a strong photon antibunching with a degenerate optical parametric amplifier coupled to a cavity via unconventional photon blockade. The photon blockade occurs as a result of the suppression of two-photon excitation due to a quantum interference effect between different transition paths. Via analytical calculations, we find out the conditions for optimized photon antibunching in terms of parametric gain and the parametric amplifier pump phase. Calculations of second-order correlation function demonstrate strong photon antibunching. The numerical results are compared with the analytical results and both are in complete agreement. Under the optimal parameters, the system can be used to generate sub-Poissonian light.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.96.053827

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We propose a scheme to achieve a strong photon antibunching with a degenerate optical parametric amplifier coupled to a cavity via unconventional photon blockade. The photon blockade occurs as a result of the suppression of two-photon excitation due to a quantum interference effect between different transition paths. Via analytical calculations, we find out the conditions for optimized photon antibunching in terms of parametric gain and the parametric amplifier pump phase. Calculations of second-order correlation function demonstrate strong photon antibunching. The numerical results are compared with the analytical results and both are in complete agreement. Under the optimal parameters, the system can be used to generate sub-Poissonian light.
We theoretically investigate the quantum-interference-induced photon blockade effect in a single two-level atom-cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED) system with degenerate parametric amplification. The analytical calculations reveal the optimal parametric gain and phase parameters for achieving optimum unconventional photon blockade conditions. Under the optimal parameter regime, the numerical results of the second-order correlation function demonstrate strong photon antibunching consistent with the analytical results. Furthermore, the numerical results corroborate that coherently driving the atom leads to a stronger photon blockade than a coherently driven cavity with the optimal parameters. We numerically demonstrate that the UPB effect is compromised by a non-zero cavity-atom coupling in the cavity-driven configuration. However, stronger photon antibunching can be attained with a non-zero cavity-atom coupling in the atom-driven configuration. This work may be suitable for experimentally realising a strongly antibunched single-photon source for applications in quantum technology.
Abstract Unconventional photon blockade (UPB) is an important quantum phenomenon that relies on the quantum interference effect. Here, we propose coupling an optical parametric amplifier (OPA) to a Kerr nonlinear single-mode cavity in a two-photon dissipation environment, enabling strong photon antibunching based on the UPB mechanism. The optimal conditions for achieving UPB are first derived analytically. The results are subsequently compared with the second-order correlation function derived from numerical simulations, and excellent agreement is observed. The findings show that UPB is enhanced without significantly reducing the mean photon number. This further demonstrates that the width of the UPB occurrence window increases with increasing OPA coefficient and driving laser intensity. Finally, theoretical analysis reveals the physical mechanism of UPB, showing that the Kerr medium is not the dominant factor for UPB generation in this system. Thus, our work offers valuable theoretical guidance for precisely controlling UPB and optimizing single-photon source performance.
The photon blockade based on weak nonlinearities is called unconventional photon blockade. The studies of the unconventional photon blockade in recent decades are all limited to Markovian approximation. In this paper, we propose a scheme to achieve a strong photon antibunching in non-Markovian reservoir. An exact non-Markovian master equation for the optical cavity coupled with a degenerate optical parametric amplifier (DOPA) is derived. We show that this unconventional photon blockade originates from the destructive interference between two paths which are formed by the DOPA pump and a driving field. Unconventional single-photon blockades that exhibit a transition from the non-Markovian to Markovian regime by controlling environmental spectral width regardless of the weakness of DOPA gain and driving field are found. We analytically derive an optimal condition for strong antibunching, which is in good agreement with that obtained by the full numerical simulation. The presented results then are compared with that given by Markovian approximation in the weak-coupling limit. Our scheme might have paved an avenue towards the investigations of unconventional photon blockades in many other non-Markovian quantum systems in quantum optics.
In this paper, we present a scheme to realize an unconventional photon blockade effect in a Fabry-Perot cavity and optical parametric amplifier (OPA) composite system. The system includes a tunable phase of complex driving strength, the second-order correlation function is used to describe the photon statistical properties. The numerical simulation of the photon blockade effect is conducted with different parameters. Our calculations show that the unconventional photon blockade effect can be controlled by the tunable phase of complex driving strength. Under the weak driving condition, the exact optimal conditions for strong photon anti-bunching are analytically derived (i.e. the optimal nonlinear gain of optical parametric amplifier and the phase of the field driving for the strong photon anti-bunching are obtained), and obtain the analytic calculations of the second-order correlation function. Under the optimal conditions, we perform a numerical simulation with different parameters. The optimal conditions for strong photon anti-bunching are found by analytic calculations, which are in good agreement with the numerical results. The results provide a platform for coherently operating the photon blockade and have potential applications in quantum information processing and quantum optical devices.
We propose a scheme of photon blockade in a system comprising of coupled cavities embedded in Kerr nonlinear material, where two cavities are driven and dissipated. We analytically derive the exact optimal conditions for strong photon antibunching, which are in good agreement with those obtained by numerical simulations. We find that conventional and unconventional photon blockades have controllable flexibilities by tuning the strength ratio and relative phase between two complex driving fields. Such unconventional photon-blockade effects are ascribed to the quantum interference effect to avoid two-photon excitation of the coupled cavities. We also discuss the statistical properties of the photons under given optimal conditions. Our results provide a promising platform for the coherent manipulation of photon blockade, which has potential applications for quantum information processing and quantum optical devices.