Photon transport theory

Chan U Lei, Weimin Zhang

In this paper, we develop a quantum transport theory to describe photonic transport in photonic networks. The photonic networks concerned in the paper consist of all-optical circuits incorporating photonic bandgap waveguides and driven resonators. The photonic transport flowing through waveguides are entirely determined from the exact master equation of the driven resonators. The master equation of the driven resonators is obtained by explicitly eliminating all the waveguide degrees of freedom while the back-reactions between resonators and waveguides are fully taken into account. The relations between the driven photonic dynamics and photocurrents are obtained. The non-Markovian memory structure and quantum coherence and decoherence effects in photonic transport are also fully included. This quantum transport theory unifies two fundamental nonequilibrium approaches, the Keldysh's nonequilibrium Green function technique and the Feynman-Vernon influence functional approach, together to make the investigation of the transient quantum photonic transport become more powerful. As an illustration, the theory is applied to the transport phenomena of a driven nanocavity coupled to two waveguides in photonic crystals. The controllability of photonic transport through the driven resonator is demonstrated.

Antti‐Pekka Jauho

Zeyang Liao, Xiaodong Zeng, Hyunchul Nha +1 more

Abstract The waveguide quantum electrodynamics (QED) system may have important applications in quantum device and quantum information technology. In this article we review the methods being proposed to calculate photon transport in a one-dimensional (1D) waveguide coupled to quantum emitters. We first introduce the Bethe ansatz approach and the input–output formalism to calculate the stationary results of a single photon transport. Then we present a dynamical time-dependent theory to calculate the real-time evolution of the waveguide QED system. In the longtime limit, both the stationary theory and the dynamical calculation give the same results. Finally, we also briefly discuss the calculations of the multiphoton transport problems.

Alex Kamenev

David K. Ferry

Jung‐Tsung Shen, Shanhui Fan

The single-photon transport in a single-mode waveguide, coupled to a cavity embedded with a two-level atom, is analyzed. The single-photon transmission and reflection amplitudes, as well as the cavity and the atom excitation amplitudes, are solved exactly via a real-space approach. It is shown that the dissipations of the cavity and of the atom, respectively, affect distinctively on the transport properties of the photons and on the relative phase between the excitation amplitudes of the cavity mode and the atom.