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Advanced Quantum Technologies

Kerr‐Nonlinearity Enhanced Photon Blockades via Driving a Δ‐Type Atom

Wěi Zhāng, Shutian Liu, Shou Zhang, Hong‐Fu Wang

Published Sep 22, 2023• 13 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract The single‐ and two‐photon blockade effects in an optical cavity with a nonlinear Kerr medium, which is coupled with a three‐level atom, forming a Δ‐type transition configuration and closed‐loop coupling are investigated by introducing two driving fields in the atom‐cavity system. It is found that single‐ and two‐photon blockades can be remarkably enhanced by the Kerr nonlinearity, however, the parameter regimes governing two blockades are distinctly different. It is demonstrated that a large Kerr nonlinearity makes more contribution to the single‐photon blockade, as compared to the two‐photon blockade effect. Furthermore, by varying the atom‐cavity coupling strength, single‐ and two‐photon blockades can alternatingly occur. Additionally, the region where two‐photon blockade occurs is widened at the cost of increased Kerr nonlinearity and atom‐cavity coupling. This work provides an alternative way to manipulate the few‐photon states and has potential applications in generating single‐photon or two‐photon sources.

DOI
10.1002/qute.202300187

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IEEE Access•Jan 1, 2026•0 citations
Abstract The single‐ and two‐photon blockade effects in an optical cavity with a nonlinear Kerr medium, which is coupled with a three‐level atom, forming a Δ‐type transition configuration and closed‐loop coupling are investigated by introducing two driving fields in the atom‐cavity system. It is found that single‐ and two‐photon blockades can be remarkably enhanced by the Kerr nonlinearity, however, the parameter regimes governing two blockades are distinctly different. It is demonstrated that a large Kerr nonlinearity makes more contribution to the single‐photon blockade, as compared to the two‐photon blockade effect. Furthermore, by varying the atom‐cavity coupling strength, single‐ and two‐photon blockades can alternatingly occur. Additionally, the region where two‐photon blockade occurs is widened at the cost of increased Kerr nonlinearity and atom‐cavity coupling. This work provides an alternative way to manipulate the few‐photon states and has potential applications in generating single‐photon or two‐photon sources.
Photon blockade, in analogy to Coulomb's or phonon blockades, is a phenomenon when a single photon in a nonlinear cavity blocks the transmission of a second photon. This effect can occur in Kerr-type systems driven by a laser due to strong nonlinear photon-photon interactions. We predict the occurrence of higher-order photon blockades where the transmission of more than two photons is effectively blocked by single- and two-photon states. This photon blockade can be achieved by tuning the frequency of the laser driving field to be equal to the sum of the Kerr nonlinearity and the cavity resonance frequency. We refer to this phenomenon as two-photon blockade or two-photon state truncation via nonlinear scissors, and can also be interpreted as photon-induced tunneling. We also show that, for a driving-field frequency fulfilling another resonance condition and for higher strengths of the driving field, even a three-photon blockade can occur but less clearly than in the case of single- and two-photon blockades. We demonstrate how various photon blockades can be identified by analyzing photon-number correlations, coherence and entropic properties, Wigner functions, and spectra of squeezing. We show that two- and three-photon blockades can, in principle, be observed in various cavity and circuit quantum electrodynamical systems for which the standard single-photon blockade was observed without the need of using higher-order driving interactions or Kerr media exhibiting higher-order nonlinear susceptibility.
Universal photon blockade in a two-mode Jaynes-Cummings model incorporating third-order Kerr nonlinearity is demonstrated with a single two-level atom coupled to a waveguide microcavity. Realization of this universal photon blockade is attributed to the cooperative effects of field-atom coupling and Kerr nonlinearity. More importantly, this antibunching is found to be robust against the atomic spontaneous emission, driving field strength, and defect-induced cavity mode coupling. The strong antibunching effect in this resonance-driven scheme is essentially different from those without Kerr nonlinearity. Moreover, this work expands the platform for achieving universal photon blockade and reveals the cooperative advantages of nonlinearities in enhancing the purity and brightness of single-photon sources, representing a novel strategy toward high-performance single-photon sources in integrated quantum optical devices.
This work investigates photon blockade control in a hybrid quantum system containing a Kerr-nonlinear cavity coupled to an optical parametric amplifier (OPA). The dynamics are governed by a master equation derived from an effective Hamiltonian that includes cavity decay. To obtain analytical solutions, the system's quantum state is expanded in the Fock basis up to the two-photon level. Solving the steady-state Schrodinger equation yields probability amplitudes and the analytical conditions for optimal photon blockade. Results confirm that photon blockade is achievable with suitable parameters. Excellent agreement is found between the analytical solutions and numerical simulations for the steady-state, equal-time second-order correlation function, validating both the analytical method and the blockade effect. Numerically, the average intracavity photon number increases significantly under resonance, providing a theoretical pathway for enhancing single-photon source brightness. Furthermore, the driving phase is shown to regulate the optimal blockade region: it shifts the parabolic region within the two-dimensional parameter space of driving strength and OPA nonlinearity and can even reverse its opening direction. The influence of Kerr nonlinearity is also examined. Photon blockade remains robust across a wide range of Kerr strengths. Physical analysis attributes the effect to destructive quantum interference between two distinct excitation pathways that suppress two-photon states. While Kerr nonlinearity shifts the system's energy levels, it does not disrupt this interference mechanism, explaining the effect's stability over a broad parameter range.
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.
We study the photon blockade effect in a coupled cavity system, which is formed by a linear cavity coupled to a Kerr-type nonlinear cavity via a photon-hopping interaction. We explain the physical phenomenon from the viewpoint of the conventional and unconventional photon blockade effects. The corresponding physical mechanisms of the two kinds of photon blockade effects are based on the anharmonicity in the eigenenergy spectrum and the destructive quantum interference between two different transition paths, respectively. In particular, we find that the photon blockade via destructive quantum interference also exists in the conventional photon blockade regime and that the unconventional photon blockade occurs in both the weak- and strong-Kerr nonlinearity cases. The photon blockade effect can be observed by calculating the second-order correlation function of the cavity field. This model is general and hence it can be implemented in various experimental setups such as coupled optical-cavity systems, coupled photon-magnon systems, and coupled superconducting-resonator systems. We present some discussions on the experimental feasibility.
We investigate the photon blockade effect in a Jaynes-Cummings hybrid system with Kerr nonlinearity. Specifically, the hybrid system consists of a Jaynes-Cummings model nonlinearly coupled to two other optical modes. Our results, supported by both analytical calculations and numerical simulations, show that strong photon antibunching can occur in this system. Compared with a system without Kerr nonlinearity, the proposed system exhibits a stronger photon blockade effect due to the superposition of unconventional (quantum interference) and conventional (Kerr-induced anharmonicity) blockade mechanisms. Furthermore, we discuss the influences of Jaynes-Cummings coupling and driving strength on the photon blockade. Our findings may contribute to the design and application of single-photon source devices.