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Chinese Physics B

Sensitive sensing based on quantum correlation of photons in weak nonlinear regime

Ziqiang Yin, Zhi-Hao Liu, Jian Tang, Hui Jing, Xun‐Wei Xu

Published Apr 8, 2026• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract Quantum correlation of photons based on quantum interference, such as unconventional photon blockade (UPB), has been extensively studied for realizing single-photon sources in a weak nonlinear regime. However, how to use this effect for other practical applications is rarely studied. Here, we propose to realize angular velocity and temperature sensing based on the quantum correlation of photons induced by quantum interference. We demonstrate that UPB can be observed in the mixing field output from a Mach–Zehnder interferometer (MZI) with two cavities in its two arms based on quantum interference. We show that the second-order correlation function of the output field is sensitive to the parameters of the system, and propose schemes to realize angular velocity and temperature sensing by measuring the second-order correlation of the photons output from the MZI. We find that the second-order correlation function of the output field is much more sensitive to the parameters of the system than the mean photon number, which provides an application scenario for UPB in sensitive sensing.

DOI
10.1088/1674-1056/ae5c71

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Abstract Quantum correlation of photons based on quantum interference, such as unconventional photon blockade (UPB), has been extensively studied for realizing single-photon sources in a weak nonlinear regime. However, how to use this effect for other practical applications is rarely studied. Here, we propose to realize angular velocity and temperature sensing based on the quantum correlation of photons induced by quantum interference. We demonstrate that UPB can be observed in the mixing field output from a Mach–Zehnder interferometer (MZI) with two cavities in its two arms based on quantum interference. We show that the second-order correlation function of the output field is sensitive to the parameters of the system, and propose schemes to realize angular velocity and temperature sensing by measuring the second-order correlation of the photons output from the MZI. We find that the second-order correlation function of the output field is much more sensitive to the parameters of the system than the mean photon number, which provides an application scenario for UPB in sensitive sensing.
Quantum correlation of photons based on quantum interference, such as unconventional photon blockade (UPB), has been extensively studied for realizing single-photon sources in weak nonlinear regime. However, how to use this effect for other practical applications is rarely studied. Here, we propose schemes to realize sensitive sensing by the quantum correlation of photons based on quantum interference. We demonstrate that UPB can be observed in the mixing field output from a Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) with two cavities in the two arms based on quantum interference. We show that the second-order correlation function of the output field is sensitive to the parameters of system and propose schemes to realize angular velocity and temperature sensing by measuring the second-order correlation of the photons output from the MZI. We find that the second-order correlation function of the output field is much more sensitive to the parameters of system than the mean photon number, which provides an application scenario for the quantum correlation of photons in sensitive sensing.
Abstract Quantum information processing, a key component of quantum information science, has attracted considerable attention. Its realization requires physical platforms and resources, among which optical systems and single-photon sources based on photon blockade (PB) have been widely employed. Here we investigate PB behaviors in a coupled optical cavity system driven by both single- and two-photon fields. The optimal conditions for PB are obtained with respect to the two-photon driving strength and cavity-laser detuning via analytical calculations. Using these optimal solutions, we show that a significant PB effect is achievable even with weak Kerr nonlinearity, and confirm that this behavior corresponds to unconventional PB (UPB) through a comparison of the second- and third-order correlation functions. Furthermore, our analysis reveals that UPB can be enhanced by two-photon dissipation. These results provide theoretical strategies for enhancing UPB, and offer insight into its fundamental mechanism.
Abstract Unconventional photon blockade (UPB) is an important quantum phenomenon that relies on the quantum interference effect. Here, we propose coupling an optical parametric amplifier (OPA) to a Kerr nonlinear single-mode cavity in a two-photon dissipation environment, enabling strong photon antibunching based on the UPB mechanism. The optimal conditions for achieving UPB are first derived analytically. The results are subsequently compared with the second-order correlation function derived from numerical simulations, and excellent agreement is observed. The findings show that UPB is enhanced without significantly reducing the mean photon number. This further demonstrates that the width of the UPB occurrence window increases with increasing OPA coefficient and driving laser intensity. Finally, theoretical analysis reveals the physical mechanism of UPB, showing that the Kerr medium is not the dominant factor for UPB generation in this system. Thus, our work offers valuable theoretical guidance for precisely controlling UPB and optimizing single-photon source performance.
In the past few years, cavity optomechanical systems have received extensive attention and research and have achieved rapid development both theoretically and experimentally. The systems play an important role in many fields, such as quantum information processing, optomechanical storage, high-precision measurement, macroscopic entanglement, ultrasensitive sensors and so on. Photon manipulation has always been one of the key tasks in quantum information science and technology. Photon blockade is an important way to realize single photon sources and plays an important role in the field of quantum information. Due to the nonlinear coupling of the optical force system, the energy level is not harmonic, resulting in a photon blockade effect. In this paper, we study the phase-controlled tunable unconventional photon blockade in a single-atom-cavity system, and the second-order nonlinear crystals are attached to the cavity. The cavity interacts with squeezed light, which results in a nonlinear process. The system is driven by a complex pulsed laser, and the strength of the coherent driving contains the phase. We want to study the effect of squeezed light and phase. We use the second-order correlation function to numerically and theoretically analyze the photon blockade effect. We show that quantum interference of two-photon excitation between three different transition pathways can cause a photon blockade effect. When there is no squeezed light, the interference pathways becomes two, but there are still photon blockade effects. We explore the influence of the tunable phase and second-order nonlinear strength on the photon blockade effect. We calculate the correlation function and compare the numerical results with the analytical results under certain parameters and find that the agreement is better.
We theoretically study the photon blockade (PB) effect in a double-cavity optomechanical system with the two-photon driving. By analytical calculations and numerical simulations, the physical mechanisms of conventional photon blockade (CPB) and unconventional photon blockade (UPB) are discussed in detail. And then we obtain the optimal parameter conditions for PB. In our work, there exist both the CPB induced by strong nonlinear interaction and the UPB caused by quantum interference. In particular, we find that CPB and UPB can occur simultaneously under the same parameters. In addition, we also prove that the appropriate values of nonreciprocal coupling and two-photon driving are favorable to the improvement of PB. Our proposal provides an idea for simultaneously realizing CPB and UPB in the optomechanical system and offers a route for constructing high-quality single-photon sources.
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.