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Physical Review A

Vacuum-induced quantum-beat-enabled photon antibunching

Zhiming Wu, Jiahua Li, Ying Wu

Published Aug 25, 2023• 14 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Vacuum-induced coupling (VIC), arising from the quantum interference between the spontaneous emission pathways from the excited doublet to a common ground state, has attracted significant research interest and has been observed in recent experiments. Here, we present an alternative route to probe the existence of VIC by means of the coherence statistics of photon antibunching and show that, under realistic experimental conditions, the vacuum-induced quantum beat (VIQB) can enable strong photon antibunching with high brightness in an optical nanofiber (ONF) cavity quantum electrodynamics (CQED) system. We find that the occurrence of the photon antibunching corresponds to the existence of the VIC, indicating that the photon antibunching can be an important witness for VIC. In addition, a strong photon antibunching effect appears in the weak-coupling regime of light-atom interactions when the VIQB is present, as a result of the destructive quantum interference between the different paths for two-photon excitation. Furthermore, we find that strong photon antibunching can be generated within a certain driving frequency range in the present system, which can relax the requirement for the driving frequency in the ONF CQED system. Also, we compare the analytical and numerical results of the second-order intensity correlation function, and they are in good agreement. The present study builds a bridge between the photon antibunching and the VIC and VIQB, which is useful for well understanding and researching a tunable single-photon source, as well as enabling potential applications in quantum information processing and quantum communications.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.108.023727

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Vacuum-induced coupling (VIC), arising from the quantum interference between the spontaneous emission pathways from the excited doublet to a common ground state, has attracted significant research interest and has been observed in recent experiments. Here, we present an alternative route to probe the existence of VIC by means of the coherence statistics of photon antibunching and show that, under realistic experimental conditions, the vacuum-induced quantum beat (VIQB) can enable strong photon antibunching with high brightness in an optical nanofiber (ONF) cavity quantum electrodynamics (CQED) system. We find that the occurrence of the photon antibunching corresponds to the existence of the VIC, indicating that the photon antibunching can be an important witness for VIC. In addition, a strong photon antibunching effect appears in the weak-coupling regime of light-atom interactions when the VIQB is present, as a result of the destructive quantum interference between the different paths for two-photon excitation. Furthermore, we find that strong photon antibunching can be generated within a certain driving frequency range in the present system, which can relax the requirement for the driving frequency in the ONF CQED system. Also, we compare the analytical and numerical results of the second-order intensity correlation function, and they are in good agreement. The present study builds a bridge between the photon antibunching and the VIC and VIQB, which is useful for well understanding and researching a tunable single-photon source, as well as enabling potential applications in quantum information processing and quantum communications.
A recent experiment [H. S. Han et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 127, 073604 (2021); see also accompanying online supplemental material] shows that when a three-level VVV-type atom with two closely lying upper states interacts with the same vacuum radiation field, its excited states enable vacuum-induced coupling (VIC) owing to the quantum interference between the spontaneous emission pathways. Here, we propose a feasible scheme for phase-engineered photon correlations in the presence of the VIC in an optical nanofiber (ONF) cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED) system. Specifically, we show that a phase-dependent strong photon antibunching with high brightness can be generated in the weak-coupling regime of light-atom interactions. This occurs because of the VIC, leading to both the destructive quantum interference between the different pathways for two-photon excitation and the total closed-loop coupling phase. Different types of purely quantum correlations, such as single- and two-photon blockades, can occur by properly tuning the total closed-loop coupling phase adhering on the VIC, and the switch from photon blockade to photon induced tunneling is revealed as well. On the other hand, the strong photon antibunching can be achieved in a broad driving frequency range, which relaxes the requirement for the driving frequency in the ONF cavity QED system. In addition, we compare the analytical and numerical results of the second- and third-order intensity correlation functions, and they are in good agreement. The present study may provide an alternative route to manipulate the few-photon states and have potential applications in single-photon sources and quantum communications.
We present an alternative route to realize coherent perfect absorption (CPA) and subnatural narrowing by vacuum-induced coupling (VIC) between excited levels of an atomic ensemble in an optical nanofiber (ONF) cavity quantum electrodynamics (CQED) system. By employing the VIC arising from quantum interference between the spontaneous emission pathways from the upper excited doublet to one common ground state in the three-level VVV-type atoms, a very narrow absorption resonance can be observed in the generated dark-state spectral window owing to quantum destructive interference between the spontaneous emission pathways. The spectroscopic output feature exhibits a reduced linewidth, which is much narrower than both the empty-cavity linewidth and the atomic transition linewidth. As a check, the approximate analytical results for the ONF cavity-output power and linewidth of interest agree well with the numerical simulations. Furthermore, we find that the CPA can be used to probe the existence of the VIC effect. By tuning the relative phase between the two input light fields appropriately, the conversion between the CPA and coherent perfect transmission (CPT) can be realized in both the linear and nonlinear excitation regimes, i.e., the relative phase can switch the ONF CQED system from a perfect photon absorber to a nearly perfect photon transmitter. Also, we analyze the optical bistability of the ONF CQED system and its phase dependence in the nonlinear excitation regime. Such interference control of the CPA-to-CPT (or vice versa) scheme proposed here may have potential applications in optical logical devices for optical computing and quantum information processing.
We present an all-fiber emitter-cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED) scheme which makes it possible to realize the strong photon blockade phenomenon in the strong coupling regime. To begin with, we study the emitter-cavity system where the two-level emitter and cavity are driven by a laser field under different driving strengths, respectively. Then, we theoretically derive that through driving the single-mode nanofiber cavity and a single two-level emitter simultaneously with two classical fields, the photon antibunching effect and the intracavity mean photon number will be tremendously enhanced. Compared with the systems driving an emitter or the cavity, respectively, the second-order correlation function at zero time decay g(2)(0){g}^{(2)}(0)g(2)(0) in our system can reach the minimum value as 0.0003, which is much smaller than a single-emitter-cavity QED system of emitter drive or cavity drive. In particular, under the condition of quantum interference model, the strong phenomenon of photon antibunching can be flexibly reached by controlling of the intensity relationship between the dual-pumping fields in the strong coupling regime. Our proposal can be achieved in the near future and has great potential applications in high-quality single-photon sources and quantum communication processing.
Photon antibunching based on a single two-level atom strongly coupled to a single-mode optical cavity has been demonstrated in experiments. Here, we put forward an improved version of such an antibunching by introducing a pump field and a microwave field in the coupled atom-cavity system to form both a three-level $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}$-type transition and closed-loop coupling. Via calculating the zero-time-delay second-order correlation function g(2)(0){g}^{(2)}(0)g(2)(0) of the single-mode cavity field, we find that a complete photon blockade, namely, g(2)(0)=0{g}^{(2)}(0)=0g(2)(0)=0, can be well achieved without detuning the driving and cavity resonance. In addition, it is clearly shown that this strong photon antibunching effect appears in the weak-coupling regime of light-atom interactions. The enhanced photon antibunching is ascribed to quantum interference between the two transition paths from the three-level $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}$ atom weakly coupled to the three involved fields (cavity, pump, and microwave). Our proposal is useful for the single-photon generation by photon blockade, which has applications in quantum information processing.
The antibunching effect generated in a cavity containing first a single two-level atomic system and then two identical atoms is explored for off-resonant interactions, in strong- and weak-coupling regimes. The cavity is driven by coherent and squeezed sources. Using the second-order correlation function analytically derived in the weak-excitation regime, we show that squeezed light achieves and improves strong antibunching, leading to a photon blockade. This enhancement is due to a destructive quantum interference mechanism induced by the nonclassical light, creating a supplementary transition pathway. The best effect is obtained for equal frequency detunings in the strong-coupling regime. More interestingly, our investigation reveals that the two-atom-cavity system can further improve the antibunching effect compared to the single-atom cavity. It turns out that the additional couplings appearing in the cavity due to the implementation of the two atoms, combined with the squeezed light, could substantially enhance the photon-blockade effect.
We investigate the generation of strong antibunching photons/photon pairs in a two-atom cavity QED system leveraging interatomic van der Waals (vdW) interaction. We show that the vdW interaction shifts the energy of double excited state, enabling the suppression of two-photon excitation via destructive interference in a diamond configuration. This leads to antibunching photon emission with extremely high purity. Furthermore, by tuning the vdW interaction strength, the conditions for conventional and unconventional photon blockades can be satisfied simultaneously, which significantly enhances the generation of single photon. Conversely, at the antiblockade excitation frequency, quantum Monte Carlo simulations demonstrate the feasibility of generating antibunching photon pairs with a high purity and reasonable leaking rate by selecting appropriate driving field Rabi frequency and vdW interaction strength. These findings on enhanced photon antibunching and photon pair emission may lead to more efficient and brighter quantum light sources, which is a key mechanism for optical quantum devices.