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Physical Review A

Nonreciprocal photon blockade via chiral cavity-atom interaction

Lili Zheng, Yuan Zhou, Jun Yang, Kun Chen, Xin‐You Lü, Chang‐Sheng Hu

Published Mar 26, 2025• 10 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We introduce a method to achieve nonreciprocal photon blockade in an optical resonator that is chirally coupled to a two-level atom. This approach enables single-excitation and two-excitation resonant conditions to be simultaneously satisfied. The atom-uncoupled optical mode can be blocked with eliminating its two-photon excitation by judiciously selecting parameters, e.g., the optical coupling strength. The chiral interaction between the resonator mode and the atom leads to different optimal parameter conditions for generating photon blockade in the two opposite drivings. This offers a natural way to realize nonreciprocal photon blockade. The nonreciprocity achieved by the chiral cavity-atom interaction diminishes the experimental difficulty by eliminating the need to rotate the resonator. The blockade mode achieves very high purity of single-photon excitation, as characterized by a second-order correlation function of ${g}^{(2)}(0)\ensuremath{\sim}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}4}$. In particular, in the nonreciprocal regime, the mean number of photons is significantly higher where photon blockade occurs compared to the general Jaynes-Cummings case. Our findings are particularly relevant for the development of quantum nonreciprocal devices and their applications in quantum information processing, including chiral networks.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.111.033715

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We introduce a method to achieve nonreciprocal photon blockade in an optical resonator that is chirally coupled to a two-level atom. This approach enables single-excitation and two-excitation resonant conditions to be simultaneously satisfied. The atom-uncoupled optical mode can be blocked with eliminating its two-photon excitation by judiciously selecting parameters, e.g., the optical coupling strength. The chiral interaction between the resonator mode and the atom leads to different optimal parameter conditions for generating photon blockade in the two opposite drivings. This offers a natural way to realize nonreciprocal photon blockade. The nonreciprocity achieved by the chiral cavity-atom interaction diminishes the experimental difficulty by eliminating the need to rotate the resonator. The blockade mode achieves very high purity of single-photon excitation, as characterized by a second-order correlation function of g(2)(0)\ensuremath∼10\ensuremath−4{g}^{(2)}(0)\ensuremath{\sim}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}4}g(2)(0)\ensuremath∼10\ensuremath−4. In particular, in the nonreciprocal regime, the mean number of photons is significantly higher where photon blockade occurs compared to the general Jaynes-Cummings case. Our findings are particularly relevant for the development of quantum nonreciprocal devices and their applications in quantum information processing, including chiral networks.
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.
We propose a scheme to achieve nonreciprocal conventional photon blockades simultaneously in two independent optical modes, which are connected by a two-level system. In the case that only one optical mode is weakly driven, we find that strong nonreciprocal photon blockades of both optical modes can be observed. We show that, for both optical modes, the single-photon blockades happens by driving the nonlinear device from one side, while photon-induced tunneling appears when driving the system from the other side, which is attributed to the anharmonic eigenenergy spectrum constructed by resonantly coupling to a two-level system. According to photon resonance transition processes under different driving directions, the four optimal Fizeau-Sagnac shifts can be obtained to generate perfect nonreciprocal conventional photon blockades of both optical modes. Our study opens an avenue to simultaneously manipulate multiple nonreciprocal single-photon devices and may have potential applications in chiral quantum information processing.
We propose a scheme to achieve the simultaneous nonreciprocal photon blockade of two microring resonators in an all-optical system without any rotating parts. By unidirectionally parametrically pumping a ${\ensuremath{\chi}}^{(2)}$-nonlinear resonator with a classical coherent field, the counterclockwise mode in the resonator is exposed to the parametric amplification process when a forward signal field is input in another resonator, but not the case for a backward signal field. This leads to different quantum interference effects among distinct excitation paths for two optical modes, which is the essential reason for simultaneous nonreciprocal photon blockade. We analytically give the optimal parameter conditions to achieve simultaneous strong photon blockade with the parametric amplification. Furthermore, the nonreciprocity is simultaneously enhanced through tuning the amplitude of input signal. Our work provides an avenue to realize simultaneous nonreciprocal single-photon devices without moving parts and may have potential applications in many-body quantum information processing and quantum communication.
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In this paper we propose a scheme for achieving simultaneous nonreciprocal photon blockade for two coupled spinning resonators, one of which contains an optical parametric amplifier (OPA). Rotating two resonators gives rise to opposite Sagnac-Fizeau shifts for input from different ends. Depending on the opposite shifts, quantum destructive interference emerges and disappears in two-photon excitation. The emergence of destructive interference results in photon blockade in two resonators simultaneously for one end input, while the lack of complete destructive interference makes the blockade disappear for the other end input. The simultaneous nonreciprocal blockade is tunable by controlling the amplitude of the probe field and the driving field applied on the OPA. Our work paves the way to develop simultaneous nonreciprocal single-photon devices in multiple modes, which have potential applications in multichannel topological and chiral quantum technologies.
ABSTRACT High‐performance unidirectional and directional single‐photon sources characterized by high purity and brightness are crucial in quantum networks. In this work, photon blockade has been demonstrated with maximized mean photon number in the emitter, cavity and two‐field driving Jaynes–Cummings models using two‐photon dissipation. The results show that the two‐photon dissipation process effectively enhance the antibunching effect, thereby reducing the necessity for sufficiently strong coupling strengths and enabling the realization of photon blockade at points of maximized mean photon number. Based on prior study, nonreciprocal photon blockade via chiral coupling is proposed in conjunction with two‐photon dissipation under different driving configurations. The results indicate that nonreciprocal photon blockade emerges in both cavity and two‐field driving cases, but is absent in the emitter driving case. Under cavity driving, the nonreciprocal photon blockade accompanies with relatively higher mean photon number. Under two‐field driving, additional advantages are observed. First, the nonreciprocal photon blockade can be obtained independently in both driving directions. Second, the effect is stronger compared to that under cavity driving. Third, it operates effectively over relatively broader continuous frequency ranges. This work is meaningful for the development of high‐performance single‐photon sources and nonreciprocal single‐photon devices in simple cavity quantum electrodynamics systems.