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Photon subtraction using a three-level emitter coupled to a chiral waveguide

Abdolreza Pasharavesh, Supratik Sarkar, Sai Sreesh Venuturumilli, Golam Bappi, Jinjin Du, Michal Bajcsy

Published Aug 12, 2026• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract We propose a scheme for deterministic single photon subtraction based on Single Photon Raman Interaction (SPRINT) with a three-level quantum emitter coupled to a chiral waveguide and present an analytical and numerical study of its feasibility. We show that single photon subtraction probability for pulsed input light in a coherent or a Fock state can approach unity in the ideal limit and discuss the potential of various reported quantum emitter-waveguide platforms as candidates for experimental realization of our scheme. The use of chiral slow-light photonic crystal waveguides coupled to Λ -type emitters can perform efficient photon subtraction. While integrating cold atoms to such systems remains technically challenging, solid-state emitters offer a potentially practical path to realize such photon subtraction.

DOI
10.1038/s41534-026-01338-4

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Abstract We propose a scheme for deterministic single photon subtraction based on Single Photon Raman Interaction (SPRINT) with a three-level quantum emitter coupled to a chiral waveguide and present an analytical and numerical study of its feasibility. We show that single photon subtraction probability for pulsed input light in a coherent or a Fock state can approach unity in the ideal limit and discuss the potential of various reported quantum emitter-waveguide platforms as candidates for experimental realization of our scheme. The use of chiral slow-light photonic crystal waveguides coupled to Λ -type emitters can perform efficient photon subtraction. While integrating cold atoms to such systems remains technically challenging, solid-state emitters offer a potentially practical path to realize such photon subtraction.
We present a specialized photon subtraction scheme that allows for the deterministic extraction of single photons from multiphoton states while preserving the input single-photon states unaltered. The proposed device integrates two Λ-type emitters with transitions selectively coupled to a single chiral waveguide through single photon Raman interaction (SPRINT). We develop a comprehensive theoretical model for the system using the input-output formalism within the SLH framework and conduct numerical simulations to analyze its interaction with traveling few-photon pulses of coherent light. We use these simulations to predict the scheme's operation and highlight how this two-emitter extension improves the original SPRINT-based deterministic single-photon subtraction when it comes to implementing undetectable photon number splitting attack on a quantum key distribution channel.
The ability to control light at the single photon level is essential for fully harnessing the power of quantum information theory, and precision measurements. In this thesis, we study two phenomena which can help us to create, and shape light at the smallest scale. In the first part of the thesis, we explore deterministic single photon subtraction based upon single photon Raman interaction of a single three-level Λ-type quantum emitter in a bi-modal cavity or coupled with a chiral waveguide. We study the effect of photon subtraction from different types of optical inputs –- continuous-wave or pulsed coherent states and Fock states, and dependence of the fidelity of subtraction upon key system parameters. We also discuss the suitability and prospects of using different emitter-waveguide systems reported in literature to successfully extract a single photon from an optical input. We find that a quantum dot coupled with a photonic crystal waveguide with high group index could subtract photons with fidelity close to unity. Moreover, we explore how such a SPRINT-based single photon subtraction process can be used to create non-Gaussian states with negative values of Wigner distribution, and negative conditional entropies. Such states can be used as quantum resources in various fields of quantum information theory. Finally, as an interesting example, we also discuss how this mechanism can also be used to create non-classical Fock states of arbitrary photon number. \nIn the second part of this thesis, we study how to shape the emission from a single solid-state quantum emitter, in particular an NV⁻ center in diamond, using two dimensional patterns with sub-wavelength features. We propose a pattern etched on the surface of a diamond sample that enhances the NV's emission in a particular direction, and maximizes coupling with a waveguide substantially far away from the diamond-air interface. Our proposed structure was designed using the adjoint optimization technique, which significantly reduces the amount of computational resources compared to brute-force methods to design an optical element with desired properties. Our structure exhibits a higher directionality of emission compared to other nanophotonic structures reported in the literature -- solid immersion lenses, nanopillars, and bull's eye structures. Finally, we also discuss in details the steps pertaining to setting up a confocal microscope in our laboratory for imaging NV centers, and characterizing our proposed device.
We present a photon subtraction scheme designed to deterministically extract single photons from multiphoton states within arbitrary input pulses of light using single-photon Raman interaction (SPRINT) [1]. The proposed system comprises two cascaded Lambda-type atoms with transitions selectively coupled to distinct modes of a single chiral waveguide. Through numerical simulations, we evaluate the device's performance in a potential application involving photon-number-splitting (PNS) attacks against quantum key distribution (QKD).
The single-photon Raman interaction has emerged as a promising tool for deterministic photon subtraction, acting as a photon-activated switch in which the first arriving photon renders the system transparent to subsequent photons. Here, we employ the input-output formalism to perform a single-photon transport analysis within a photon subtractor consisting of a three-level quantum emitter coupled to a bimodal cavity-waveguide system. The analysis provides the frequency response of the system and reveals how it is affected by the key physical parameters of the cavity modes, such as coupling strengths and decay rates. We utilize these results to calculate the probability of successful photon subtraction from pulses of different temporal shapes, durations, and carrier frequencies. Subsequent analysis combines the input-output formalism with the quantum trajectory method to numerically verify the analytical findings as well as to assess the impact of photon number of the input pulse on the subtractor's performance. Our findings highlight the single-photon model's capability in predicting the system's response to multiphoton inputs in the pulsed regime as well as its potential utility in the design of efficient single-photon subtractors.
We conduct a photon transport analysis on a deterministic photon subtractor utilizing single-photon Raman interaction with a three-level Λ-type atom inside a waveguide-coupled bimodal cavity. By incorporating parameters from an existing experimental cavity QED platform, we demonstrate that the photon subtractor can achieve success probabilities approaching unity. In the second part, we demonstrate a potential application of deterministic photon subtraction for generating non-classical light, specifically enabling the creation of multi-photon Fock states that can be utilized in quantum metrology at the Heisenberg limit. The results highlight the potential of deterministic photon subtraction for advancing the development of high-efficiency non-classical light sources.