Unconditional Fock state generation using arbitrarily weak photonic nonlinearities
Andrew Lingenfelter, David C K Roberts, Aashish A. Clerk
We present a mechanism that harnesses extremely weak Kerr-type nonlinearities in a single driven cavity to deterministically generate single-photon Fock states and more general photon-blockaded states. Our method is effective even for nonlinearities that are orders-of-magnitude smaller than photonic loss. It is also completely distinct from so-called unconventional photon blockade mechanisms, as the generated states are non-Gaussian, exhibit a sharp cutoff in their photon number distribution, and can be arbitrarily close to a single-photon Fock state. Our ideas require only standard linear and parametric drives and are hence compatible with a variety of different photonic platforms.
arXiv:2103.12041•Science Advances•Nov 26, 2021•28 citations