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Optics Express

Optical noise-resistant nonreciprocal phonon blockade in a spinning optomechanical resonator

Ning Yuan, Shuang He, Shiyan Li, Nan Wang, Ai‐Dong Zhu

Published May 25, 2023• 15 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A scheme of nonreciprocal conventional phonon blockade (PB) is proposed in a spinning optomechanical resonator coupled with a two-level atom. The coherent coupling between the atom and breathing mode is mediated by the optical mode with a large detuning. Due to the Fizeau shift caused by the spinning resonator, the PB can be implemented in a nonreciprocal way. Specifically, when the spinning resonator is driven from one direction, the single-phonon (1PB) and two-phonon blockade (2PB) can be achieved by adjusting both the amplitude and frequency of the mechanical drive field, while phonon-induced tunneling (PIT) occurs when the spinning resonator is driven from the opposite direction. The PB effects are insensitive to cavity decay because of the adiabatic elimination of the optical mode, thus making the scheme more robust to the optical noise and still feasible even in a low-Q cavity. Our scheme provides a flexible method for engineering a unidirectional phonon source with external control, which is expected to be used as a chiral quantum device in quantum computing networks.

DOI
10.1364/oe.492209

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A scheme of nonreciprocal conventional phonon blockade (PB) is proposed in a spinning optomechanical resonator coupled with a two-level atom. The coherent coupling between the atom and breathing mode is mediated by the optical mode with a large detuning. Due to the Fizeau shift caused by the spinning resonator, the PB can be implemented in a nonreciprocal way. Specifically, when the spinning resonator is driven from one direction, the single-phonon (1PB) and two-phonon blockade (2PB) can be achieved by adjusting both the amplitude and frequency of the mechanical drive field, while phonon-induced tunneling (PIT) occurs when the spinning resonator is driven from the opposite direction. The PB effects are insensitive to cavity decay because of the adiabatic elimination of the optical mode, thus making the scheme more robust to the optical noise and still feasible even in a low-Q cavity. Our scheme provides a flexible method for engineering a unidirectional phonon source with external control, which is expected to be used as a chiral quantum device in quantum computing networks.
We propose a scheme for achieving nonreciprocal phonon blockade in a quadratic optomechanical (QOM) system consisting of two spinning resonators near-field coupled to a nanomechanical oscillator. Due to the Sagnac-Fizeau effect, pump fields propagating in opposite directions experience distinct effective detunings,thereby leading to asymmetric intracavity intensities. Through the optical spring effect, this intensity imbalance gives rise to direction-dependent shifts in the effective mechanical frequency, providing the core mechanism for nonreciprocal phonon blockade. By judiciously setting parameters, single-phonon resonant excitation leads to conventional phonon blockade for one pump direction, whereas two-phonon resonance facilitates phononinduced tunneling (PIT) for the other. The pronounced nonreciprocity is quantified by a contrast ratio in the phonon second-order correlation function exceeding 55 dB. To elucidate the nonreciprocal statistics, the phonon blockade is further analyzed in terms of interference between the coherent component and squeezed fluctuations. Incorporating thermal phonons, we reveal an extended nonreciprocal thermal effect, where increasing thermal noise degrades antibunching toward Poissonian statistics in one direction, yet reverses the statistics from bunching to antibunching in the opposite direction. Our work provides a pathway toward nonreciprocal phonon devices and directional phonon switches, with potential applications in chiral networks and phononic information processing.
We propose how to create and manipulate one-way nonclassical light via photon blockade in rotating nonlinear devices. We refer to this effect as nonreciprocal photon blockade (PB). Specifically, we show that in a spinning Kerr resonator, PB happens when the resonator is driven in one direction but not the other. This occurs because of the Fizeau drag, leading to a full split of the resonance frequencies of the countercirculating modes. Different types of purely quantum correlations, such as single- and two-photon blockades, can emerge in different directions in a well-controlled manner, and the transition from PB to photon-induced tunneling is revealed as well. Our work opens up a new route to achieve quantum nonreciprocal devices, which are crucial elements in chiral quantum technologies or topological photonics.
In this Letter, we propose a scheme to achieve a nonreciprocal conventional photon blockade in a nonlinear device consisting of an atom and spinning cavity by manipulating the detuning between the atom and the cavity. We show that the single-photon blockade can be generated by driving the spinning resonator from one side, while photon-induced tunneling is driven by the other side with the same driving strength. This nonreciprocal conventional photon blockade effect originates from the Fizeau-Sagnac drag, which leads to different splitting of the resonance frequencies for the counter-circulating modes. We give four optimal solutions for Fizeau-Sagnac shifts to generate a nonreciprocal conventional photon blockade with the arbitrary detunings between atom and cavity.
A hybrid optomechanical system incorporating a two-level atom is utilized to realize phonon blockade, with the large-detuned optical mode decoupled from the system via adiabatic approximation. This process establishes an exchange interaction between the two-level atom and the mechanical mode. The findings indicate that both conventional and unconventional phonon blockade mechanisms coexist within the system. By tuning the driving frequency of the two-level atom, the system can be dynamically switched between these two mechanisms. The phonon blockade effect exhibits remarkable robustness against optical dissipation due to the adiabatic elimination of the cavity mode, enabling its realization even in low-Q cavities. In this study, the two-level atom serves not only as a critical component for achieving phonon blockade but also as an additional tool for manipulating the blockade mechanism. Our results provide a promising framework for hybrid optomechanical systems aiming to achieve switchable and robust single-phonon sources.
We propose a scheme for implementing nonreciprocal transmission and a nonreciprocal photon blockade (PB) in a whispering-gallery-mode optomechanical resonator. By decoupling the mechanical degree of freedom under the Born-Oppenheimer approximation, the system is reduced to one incorporating Kerr-type nonlinearities induced by optomechanical coupling, including self-Kerr nonlinearities of the clockwise (CW) and counterclockwise (CCW) modes and cross-Kerr nonlinearity between these two modes, thereby strong nonreciprocal PB and transmission can be implemented. We demonstrate that the nonreciprocal PB and transmission are sensitive to the relative phase $\ensuremath{\theta}$ between CW and CCW modes, allowing for switching between reciprocity and nonreciprocity of PB and transmission through engineering the relative phase of external driving lasers. Numerical results obtained with experimental parameters validate the feasibility of achieving perfect nonreciprocal PB and transmission. Our paper presents a viable mechanism for the implementation of perfect nonreciprocal PB and transmission, along with a versatile approach of phase modulation, which holds great promise in serving as a chiral single-photon source in unidirectional quantum communications based on quantum nonreciprocal devices.
We propose a scheme to realize nonreciprocal photon blockade and directional amplification in a spinning resonator with clockwise and counterclockwise traveling modes coupled to a stationary two-level atom. By manipulating the rotational frequency of the resonator, the two-level atom can be resonant with one of the traveling modes and largely detuned from the other one. Nonreciprocal conventional photon blockade is induced by the difference of the detunings between the two-level atom and the optical modes traveling in different directions. Besides that, nonreciprocal unconventional photon blockade (UPB) based on the quantum interference can also be observed in the system. Based on the mechanism for nonreciprocal UPB, directional amplification of the blockaded photons is predicted by driving the spinning resonator and stationary two-level atom simultaneously. Our proposal will be applicable to achieve highly efficient nonreciprocal single-photon devices for applications in chiral quantum information processing.