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Physical Review A

Mechanism of stochastic switching in single-atom absorptive bistability

Jie Wu, Hideo Mabuchi

Published Jul 9, 2018• 4 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We analyze a single-atom cavity QED model to isolate the dynamic mechanism of stochastic switching between regions of state space associated with mean-field attractors of absorptive bistability. We present evidence from simulations that such switching is correlated with variations in the timings of atomic spontaneous emission events, and we interpret this finding in terms of the dynamics of the coupled intracavity field and atomic dipole. Somewhat surprisingly, both upward and downward (in intracavity photon number) switching transitions may be induced by rapid succession of several atomic emissions. Based on our results we propose an implementation of bidirectional ``toggle'' control for a single-atom optical latch.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.98.013812

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We analyze a single-atom cavity QED model to isolate the dynamic mechanism of stochastic switching between regions of state space associated with mean-field attractors of absorptive bistability. We present evidence from simulations that such switching is correlated with variations in the timings of atomic spontaneous emission events, and we interpret this finding in terms of the dynamics of the coupled intracavity field and atomic dipole. Somewhat surprisingly, both upward and downward (in intracavity photon number) switching transitions may be induced by rapid succession of several atomic emissions. Based on our results we propose an implementation of bidirectional ``toggle'' control for a single-atom optical latch.
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Quantum interference and coherence lead to many interesting phenomenon and applications in quantum optics. In this dissertation, we study the quantum coherent properties in the following systems and aspects. We first investigate the optical bistability in a combined cavity-cold atoms system. In such a system the atom-photon interaction provides an optical lattice to the atoms and affects the mechanical motion of the atoms while atoms induce a position dependent phase shift on the cavity field. This highly nonlinearity induces optical bistability of intra-cavity photon number with respect to the pumping light added along the cavity axis. We show that the presence of this bistability can be controlled by a second pumping field added perpendicular to the cavity axis. It is also found that the critical input intensity of switching from one branch of bistability to the other depends on the the way of the field being added. This behavior is similar to the anomalous switching of the dispersive optical bistability of atomic media in the cavity. We also study the effect of counter-rotating terms in the control of spontaneous emission. We make use of a unitary transformation method and investigate the effect of dynamic energy shifts on the spontaneous emission modification via quantum interference in a four-level atomic system. We show that the counter-rotating terms, which are normally neglected in the usual investigation of atomic systems, do produce a significant influence on the evolution of the atomic amplitudes and the emission spectrum. This effect of counter-rotating terms can be observed in the time scale of the decay rate even when the dipole moments of the two upper levels are orthogonal to each other. The effect of counter-rotating terms on the spontaneous emission in a 3-D anisotropic photonic crystal is also discussed. It is shown that the behavior of the emission is similar to the case making rotating wave approximation, i.e., the localized and propagating fields are also separated by two characteristic atomic transition frequencies. However, the two characteristic frequencies are shifted due to the full Lamb shift which is obtained with counter-rotating terms being included in the Hamiltonian. We also utilize the unitary transformation method to show how the Lamb shift in a multi-level atom can be controlled by a driving field. Finally, we propose a subwavelength atom localization scheme for an atom located in a standing-wave field. The strategy is based on the observation that the photon statistics of resonance fluorescence depends on the position-dependent Rabi frequency.
Impressive progress has been achieved in controlling the spontaneous emission rate for emitters in Nanophotonic structures, such as microcavities, photonic crystals and nano-antennas. In all cases, however, the modification of the emission is stationary in time. Thus, the emission rate is time-independent and the distribution of photon emission times are stochastic and follow an exponential distribution in the weak coupling regime. In this paper, by using fast all-optical switching of a microcavity, the cavity resonance is tuned within tens of picosesonds. This drastically changes the local optical density of states at the emission frequency within the emission lifetime of the emitters. This paper theoretically studied an ensemble of two-level sources with a time dependent decay rate and have derived the excited state population and emitted intensity as a function of time for continuous wave and pulsed excitation. Deterministic bursts of dramatically enhanced or inhibited emission intensity within short intervals. Thereby, we control the photon distribution to show behavior that strongly deviates from single exponential decay. This can be used to protect quantum information systems against decoherence and to realize non-Markovian dynamics in cavity quantum electrodynamics.
A system of coherently driven spatially distributed two-level atoms, coupled with each other via dipole–dipole interaction, exhibits intrinsic optical bistability (IOB) at solid-state densities,1 i.e., optical bistability without optical feedback. The origin of the IOB was shown to be due to inversion-dependent renormalization of the single-atom resonance frequency caused by dipole–dipole interaction among the atoms located mainly within an atomic resonance wavelength.2 For normally incident plane waves of intensity beyond threshold, a spatially dependent discontinuity in the nonlinear refractive index was shown to exist inside the medium,1 corresponding to spatial separation of the high and low absorption phases of the IOB. We present numerical results for the time-dependent solutions of the equations of motion and dynamics of the field propagation.
We study the optical bistability and dynamics in a hybrid optomechanical system, where the cavity mode is coupled to the mechanical resonator via radiation pressure and to a two-level atom via the Jaynes–Cummings coupling. The nonlinearity due to optomechanical coupling and the addition of an atom leads to bistable behaviors of the steady-state intracavity photon number and atomic population inversion. We show that the optical bistability can be effectively controlled by the Rabi frequency of the atomic driving field, the cavity–atom coupling strength, and the amplitude and frequency of the cavity pump field. Moreover, the effects of different initial conditions of the cavity field and the amplitude of the cavity pump field on the dynamics of the system also have been discussed.
We have theoretically studied the effect of deterministic temporal control of spontaneous emission in a dynamic optical microcavity. We propose a new paradigm in light emission: we envision an ensemble of two-level emitters in an environment where the local density of optical states is modified on a time scale shorter than the decay time. A rate equation model is developed for the excited state population of two-level emitters in a time-dependent environment in the weak coupling regime in quantum electrodynamics. As a realistic experimental system, we consider emitters in a semiconductor microcavity that is switched by free-carrier excitation. We demonstrate that a short temporal increase of the radiative decay rate depletes the excited state and drastically increases the emission intensity during the switch time. The resulting time-dependent spontaneous emission shows a distribution of photon arrival times that strongly deviates from the usual exponential decay: A deterministic burst of photons is spontaneously emitted during the switch event.