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Chinese Physics B

Photon blockade in a cavity–atom optomechanical system

Zhong Ding, Yong Zhang

Published Jan 19, 2022• 3 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We study the single-photon blockade (1PB), two-photon blockade (2PB), and photon-induced tunneling (PIT) effects in a cavity–atom optomechanical system in which a two-level atom is coupled to a single-model cavity field via a two-photon interaction. By analyzing the eigenenergy spectrum of the system, we obtain a perfect 1PB with a high occupancy probability of single-photon excitation, which means that a high-quality and efficient single-photon source can be generated. However, PIT often occurs in many cases when we consider 2PB in analogy to 1PB. In addition, we find that a 2PB region will present in the optomechanical system, which can be proved by calculating the correlation function of the model analytically.

DOI
10.1088/1674-1056/ac4cbc

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We study the single-photon blockade (1PB), two-photon blockade (2PB), and photon-induced tunneling (PIT) effects in a cavity–atom optomechanical system in which a two-level atom is coupled to a single-model cavity field via a two-photon interaction. By analyzing the eigenenergy spectrum of the system, we obtain a perfect 1PB with a high occupancy probability of single-photon excitation, which means that a high-quality and efficient single-photon source can be generated. However, PIT often occurs in many cases when we consider 2PB in analogy to 1PB. In addition, we find that a 2PB region will present in the optomechanical system, which can be proved by calculating the correlation function of the model analytically.
We study multiphoton blockade and photon-induced tunneling effects in the two-photon Jaynes-Cummings model, where a single-mode cavity field and a two-level atom are coupled via a two-photon interaction. We consider both the cavity-field-driving and the atom-driving cases and find that single-photon blockade and photon-induced tunneling effects can be observed when the cavity mode is driven, while the two-photon blockade effect appears when the atom is driven. For the atom-driving case (the two-photon transition process), we present a criterion of the correlation functions for the multiphoton blockade effect. Specifically, we show that quantum interference can enhance the photon blockade effect in the single-photon cavity-field-driving case. Our results are confirmed by analytically and numerically calculating the correlation function of the cavity-field mode. Our work has potential applications in quantum information processing and paves the way for the study of multiphoton quantum coherent devices.
We theoretically study the photon blockade (PB) effect in a double-cavity optomechanical system with the two-photon driving. By analytical calculations and numerical simulations, the physical mechanisms of conventional photon blockade (CPB) and unconventional photon blockade (UPB) are discussed in detail. And then we obtain the optimal parameter conditions for PB. In our work, there exist both the CPB induced by strong nonlinear interaction and the UPB caused by quantum interference. In particular, we find that CPB and UPB can occur simultaneously under the same parameters. In addition, we also prove that the appropriate values of nonreciprocal coupling and two-photon driving are favorable to the improvement of PB. Our proposal provides an idea for simultaneously realizing CPB and UPB in the optomechanical system and offers a route for constructing high-quality single-photon sources.
We propose a scheme to enhance the single- and two-photon blockade effects significantly in a nonlinear hybrid optomechanical system with optical parametric amplification (OPA). The scheme does not rely on strong single-photon optomechanical coupling and can eliminate the disadvantages of suppressing multi-photon excitation incompletely. Through analyzing the single-photon blockade (1PB) mechanism and optimizing the system parameters, we obtain a perfect 1PB with a high occupancy probability of single-photon excitation, which means that a high-quality and efficient single-photon source can be generated. Moreover, we find that not only the two-photon blockade (2PB) effect is significantly enhanced, but also the region where 2PB occurs is widened when OPA exists, where we also derive the optimal parameter condition to maximize two-photon emission and higher photon excitations intensely suppressed at the same time.
We propose how to mechanically control photon blockade (PB) and photon-induced tunneling (PIT) in an optomechanical system. We show that single-photon blockade (1PB) and two-photon blockade (2PB) can emerge by tuning mechanical driving parameters. Moreover, by varying the strength of mechanical driving, PIT can be converted into 1PB or 2PB, or vice versa, with the constant optical frequency. We refer to this effect as PIT-1PB or PIT-2PB switch. In addition, the switch between 1PB and 2PB can also be realized with this strategy. This mechanical engineering of quantum optical effects can be understood from the shifts of energy levels induced by external mechanical pumping. Our results not only pave the way towards devising new schemes for quantum light switch but also, on a more fundamental level, could shed light on the nonclassicality of the few-photon states.
Phonon nonlinearities play an important role in hybrid quantum networks and on-chip quantum devices. We investigate the phonon statistics of a mechanical oscillator in hybrid systems composed of an atom and one or two standard optomechanical cavities. An efficiently enhanced atom-phonon interaction can be derived via a tripartite atom-photon-phonon interaction, where the atom-photon coupling depends on the mechanical displacement without practically changing a cavity frequency. This novel mechanism of optomechanical interactions, as predicted recently by Cotrufo et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 133603 (2017)], is fundamentally different from standard ones. In the enhanced atom-phonon coupling, the strong phonon nonlinearity at a single-excitation level is obtained in the originally weak-coupling regime, which leads to the appearance of phonon blockade. Moreover, the optimal parameter regimes are presented both for the cases of one- and two- cavities. We compared phonon-number correlation functions of different orders for mechanical steady states generated in the one-cavity hybrid system, revealing the occurrence of phonon-induced tunneling and different types of phonon blockade. Our approach offers an alternative method to generate and control a single phonon in the quantum regime, and has potential applications in single-phonon quantum technologies.
The research article studies the unconventional photon blockade effect in a hybrid optomechanical system with an embedded spin-triplet state. The interaction between the optomechanical system and the spin state generates new transition paths for the destructive quantum interference of the two-photon excitation state. By analytically solving the Schrodinger equation and numerically simulating the master equation, it can be found that the modulated mechanical dissipation is essential for achieving the strong photon blockade in our system. Unlike the conventional cavity optomechanical system, the second-order correlation function g(2)(0) =0 can be obtained with the weak single-photon optomechanical coupling. By adjusting the system parameters, the strong photon blockade and the single-photon resonance can coincide, which indicates the hybrid system has the potential to be a high-quality and efficient single-photon source. Finally, the influence of the thermal noise on photon blockade is investigated. The results show that the second-order correlation function is more robust for the weaker phonon-spin coupling.