We report a model that makes it possible to analyze quantitatively the dipole blockade effect on the dynamical evolution of a two two-level atom system driven by an external laser field. The multiple excitations of the atomic sample are taken into account. We find very large concurrence in the dipole blockade regime. We further find that entanglement can be tuned by changing the intensity of the exciting laser. We also report a way to lift the dipole blockade paving the way to manipulate in a controllable way the blockade effects. We finally report how a continuous monitoring of the dipole blockade would be possible using photon-photon correlations of the scattered light in a regime where the spontaneous emission would dominate dissipation in the sample.
We propose how to achieve strong photon antibunching effect in a cavity-QED system coupled with two Rydberg-Rydberg interaction atoms. Via calculating the equal time second order correlation function g(2)(0), we find that the unconventional photon blockade and the conventional photon blockade appear in the atom-driven scheme, and they are both significantly affected by the Rydberg-Rydberg interaction. We also find that under appropriate parameters, the photon antibunching and the mean photon number can be significantly enhanced by combining the conventional photon blockade and the unconvention…
In this note we present some results concerning photon blockade and antibunching in a system consisting of a quantum dot embedded in a microcavity. We give analytic conditions for resonant and non-resonant photon blockade, valid for small values of the external pump amplitude. Starting from these results, we discuss the quantum states characteristics of the system within a master equation formalism and highlight quantities like stationary second order correlations both static and dynamic and one-photon purity.
Photon antibunching is a quantum phenomenon typically observed in strongly nonlinear systems where photon blockade suppresses the probability for detecting two photons at the same time. Antibunching has also been reported with Gaussian states, where optimized amplitude squeezing yields classically forbidden values of the intensity correlation, $g^{(2)}(0)<1$. As a consequence, observing antibunching is not necessarily a signature of photon-photon interactions. To clarify the significance of the intensity correlations, we derive a sufficient condition for deducing if a field is non-Gaussian bas…
We study the photon blockade of two-photon scattering in a one-dimensional waveguide, which contains two atoms coupled via the Rydberg interaction. We obtain the analytic scattering solution of photonic wave packets with the Laplace transform method. We examine the photon correlation by addressing the two-photon relative wave function and the second-order correlation function in the single- and two-photon resonance cases. It is found that, under the single-photon resonance condition, photon bunching and antibunching can be observed in the two-photon transmission and reflection, respectively. I…
We propose a scheme to realize strong photon antibunching with lower photon nonlinearity in a photonic molecule consisting of two photonic cavities, one of which contains a quantum dot (QD). This strong photon antibunching is attributed to destructive quantum interference effect which suppresses the two-photon excitation of the cavity field. That g^2 (0)~10^(-4) can be achieved with modest QD-cavity coupling strength g=1.1k and cavity tunneling strength J=3k when the system is driven by single laser field. To further reduce the requisite tunneling and make the system tunable, two laser fields …
We study the unconventional photon blockade, recently proposed for a coupled-cavity system, in presence of input and output quantum fields. Mixing of the input or output channels still allows strong photon antibunching of the output field, but for optimal values of the system parameters that differ substantially from those that maximize antibunching of the intracavity field. This result shows that the specific input-output geometry in a photonic system determines the optimal design in view of single-photon device operation. We provide a compact analytical formula that allows finding the optima…
We show that in laser-driven coupled optomechanical systems, photon antibunching can occur under weak optomechanical coupling, contrarily to common expectation. This unconventional photon blockade originates from destructive quantum interference between different excitation pathways bringing from the ground to two-photon states. Using a quantum open-system approach, we study the antibunching as a function of driving field amplitude, temperature, and pure dephasing rate, and derive optimal values of the system parameters for its occurrence. These values are remarkably close to those characteriz…
Photon blockade is a dynamical quantum-nonlinear effect that occurs in driven systems with an anharmonic excitation ladder. For a single atom strongly coupled to an optical cavity, we show that driving the atom gives a decisively larger optical nonlinearity than driving the cavity. This enhances single-photon blockade and allows for the implementation of two-photon blockade where the absorption of two photons suppresses the absorption of further photons. As a signature, we report on three-photon antibunching with simultaneous two-photon bunching observed in the light emitted from the cavity. O…
The conventional photon blockade for high-frequency mode is investigated in a two-mode second-order nonlinear system embedded with a two-level atom. By solving the master equation and calculating the zero-delay-time second-order correlation function $g^{(2)}(0)$, we obtain that strong photon antibunching can be achieved in this scheme. In particular, we find that by increasing the linear coupling coefficient of the system, a perfect blockade region will be formed near the zero second-order nonlinear coupling coefficient. Similarly, by increasing the nonlinear coupling coefficient of the system…
Nonclassical light sources, such as correlated photon-pairs, play an important role in quantum optics and quantum information processing systems. This study proposes a process to generate antibunched photon-pairs in a nondegenerate optical parametric oscillator. It is found that when the parameters of the system satisfy certain conditions, the generated photons in subharmonic modes exhibit a strong antibunching behavior and are strongly correlated with one another. In particular, the average photon-pair number is resonantly enhanced. It is also observed that the conventional photon blockade co…
Non-Hermitian spectral degeneracies, known as exceptional points (EPs), feature simultaneous coalescence of both eigenvalues and the associated eigenstates of a system. A host of intriguing EP effects and their applications have been revealed in the classical realm, such as loss-induced lasing, single-mode laser, and EP-enhanced sensing. Here we show that a purely quantum effect, known as single-photon blockade, emerges in a Kerr microring resonator due to EP-induced asymmetric coupling between the optical modes and the nonlinearity-induced anharmonic energy-level spacing. A striking feature o…
In a recent work [T. C. H. Liew and V. Savona, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf104}, 183601 (2010)] it was numerically shown that in a photonic 'molecule' consisting of two coupled cavities, near-resonant coherent excitation could give rise to strong photon antibunching with a surprisingly weak nonlinearity. Here, we show that a subtle quantum interference effect is responsible for the predicted efficient photon blockade effect. We analytically determine the optimal on-site nonlinearity and frequency detuning between the pump field and the cavity mode. We also highlight the limitations of the proposal an…
We investigate theoretically the model of a cavity-quantum-electrodynamics (QED) system that consists of two two-level atoms coupled to a single-mode cavity in the weak coupling regime, where the system is driven by quantum light. The dynamics behavior of the entire system is tackled in the framework of a cascaded quantum system. We find that the two-photon blockade with two-photon bunching and three-photon antibunching can be obtained even when the strong system dissipation is included. This result shows that our work has potential for realizing entangled photon pairs in a weakly coupled cavi…
Phonon blockade is a purely quantum phenomenon, analogous to Coulomb and photon blockades, in which a single phonon in an anharmonic mechanical resonator can impede the excitation of a second phonon. We propose an experimental method to realize phonon blockade in a driven harmonic nanomechanical resonator coupled to a qubit, where the coupling is proportional to the second-order nonlinear susceptibility $χ^{(2)}$. This is in contrast to the standard realizations of phonon and photon blockade effects in Kerr-type $χ^{(3)}$ nonlinear systems. The nonlinear coupling strength can be adjusted conve…
We analyze the photon correlations in an optomechanical system containing two nonlinear optical modes and one mechanical mode which are coupled via a three-mode mixing. Under a weak driving condition, we determine the optimal conditions for photon antibunching in the weak Kerr-nonlinear regime and we find that the analytical calculations are consistent with the numerical results. The photon blockade effect is attributed to destructive quantum interference in the two-photon excitation pathways created as a result of the three-mode interaction.
We have theoretically studied the photon statistical properties in a nonlinear whispering-gallery-mode microresonator coupled with two nanoparticles. By tuning the relative position of two nanoparticles, the photon statistical features of the system can be modified remarkably. Interestingly, a controllable switching between unconventional and conventional photon blockade can be realized by manipulating the angular positions of two nanoparticles. We also investigate the influence of the Kerr effect on the second order correlation function and find that there is an optimal choice for the relativ…
Photon correlations, as measured by Glauber's $n$-th order coherence functions $g^{(n)}$, are highly sought to be minimized and/or maximized. In systems that are coherently driven, so-called blockades can give rise to strong correlations according to two scenarios based on level-repulsion (conventional blockade) or interferences (unconventional blockade). Here we show how these two approaches relate to the admixing of a coherent state with a quantum state such as a squeezed state for the simplest and most recurrent case. The emission from a variety of systems, such as resonance fluorescence, t…
The ability to produce nonclassical wave in a system is essential for advances in quantum communication and computation. Here, we propose a scheme to generate highly nonclassical phonon emission statistics -- antibunched wave in a quantum van der Pol (vdP) oscillator subject to an external driving, both single- and two-phonon losses. It is found that phonon antibunching depends significantly on the nonlinear two-phonon loss of the vdP oscillator, where the degree of the antibunching increases monotonically with the two-phonon loss and the distinguished parameter regimes with optimal antibunchi…
We study a 2D system of trion-polaritons at the quantum level and demonstrate that for monolayer semiconductors they can exhibit a strongly nonlinear optical response. The effect is due to the composite nature of trion-based excitations resulting in their nontrivial quantum statistical properties, and enhanced phase space filling effects. We present the full quantum theory to describe the statistics of trion-polaritons, and demonstrate that the associated nonlinearity persists at the level of few quanta, where two qualitatively different regimes of photon antibunching are present for weak and …
We study phonon statistics in a nanomechanical resonator (NAMR) which is resonantly coupled to a qubit. We find that there are two different mechanisms for phonon blockade in such a resonantly coupled NAMR-qubit system. One is due to the strong anharmonicity of the NAMR-qubit system with large coupling strength; the other one is due to the destructive interference between different paths for two-phonon excitation in the NAMR-qubit system with a moderate coupling strength. We find that the phonon blockade is fragile towards thermal mode occupations and can only be observed for NAMR being at ult…
We propose an experimental scheme to implement a strong photon blockade with a single quantum dot coupled to a nanocavity. The photon blockade effect can be tremendously enhanced by driving the cavity and the quantum dot simultaneously with two classical laser fields. This enhancement of photon blockade is ascribed to the quantum interference effect to avoid two-photon excitation of the cavity field. Comparing with Jaynes-Cummings model, the second-order correlation function at zero time delay $g^{(2)}(0)$ in our scheme can be reduced by two orders of magnitude and the system sustains a large …
A two-level system interacting with a cavity field is an important model for investigating the photon blockade (PB) effect. Most work on this topic has been based on the assumption that the atomic transition frequency is resonant with the fundamental mode frequency of the cavity. We relax this constraint and reexamine PB in a more general atom--cavity system with arbitrary atomic and cavity detunings from a driving field. The results show that when the signs of the atomic and cavity detunings are the same, PB occurs only in the strong-coupling regime, but for opposite signs of the atomic and c…
The maximum entanglement between two coupled qubits in the steady state under two independent incoherent sources of excitation is reported. Asymmetric configurations where one qubit is excited while the other one dissipates the excitation are optimal for entanglement, reaching values three times larger than with thermal sources. The reason is the purification of the steady state mixture (that includes a Bell state) thanks to the saturation of the pumped qubit. Photon antibunching between the cross emission of the qubits can be used to experimentally evidence the large degrees of entanglement.
