Hanbury Brown-Twiss correlations to probe the population statistics of GHz photons emitted by conductors

We present the first study of the statistics of GHz photons in quantum circuits, using Hanbury Brown and Twiss correlations. The super-Poissonian and Poissonian photon statistics of thermal and coherent sources, respectively, made of a resistor and a radio frequency generator, are measured down to the quantum regime at milli-Kelvin temperatures. As photon correlations are linked to the second and fourth moments of current fluctuations, this experiment, which is based on current cryogenic electronics, may become a standard for probing electron/photon statistics in quantum conductors.     

Superconducting proximity effect in interacting quantum dots revealed by shot noise

We study the full counting statistics of charge transport through a quantum dot tunnel coupled to one normal and one superconducting lead with a large superconducting gap. As a function of the level detuning, there is a crossover from a regime with strong superconducting correlations in the quantum dot to a regime in which the proximity effect on the quantum dot is suppressed. We analyze the current fluctuations of this crossover in the shot-noise regime. In particular, we predict that the full counting statistics changes from Poissonian with charge 2e, typical for Cooper pairs, to Poissonian with charge e, when the superconducting proximity effect is present. Thus, the onset of the superconducting proximity effect is revealed by the reduction of the Fano factor from 2 to 1.     

Controllable four-wave mixing based on quantum dot-cavity coupling system

We theoretically study the four-wave mixing(FWM) response in a quantum dot-cavity coupling system, where a two-level quantum dot(QD) is placed in an optical cavity while the cavity mode is coupled to the nanomechanical resonator via radiation pressure. The influences of the QD-cavity coupling strength, the Rabi coupling strength of the QD, and the power of the pump light on the FWM intensity are mainly considered. The numerical results show that the FWM intensity in this hybrid system can be significantly enhanced by increasing the QD-cavity coupling strength. In addition, the FWM intensity can be effectively modulated by the Rabi coupling strength and the pump power. Furthermore, the effects of the cavity decay rate and the cavitypump detuning on the FWM signal are also explored. The obtained results may have potential applications in the fields of quantum optics and quantum information science.     

Quantum key distribution using quantum-correlated photon sources

Quantum key exchanges using weak coherent (Poissonian) single-photon sources are open to attack by a variety of eavesdropping techniques. Quantum-correlated photon sources provide a means of flagging potentially insecure multiple-photon emissions and thus extending the secure quantum key channel capacity and the secure key distribution range. We present indicative photon-counting statistics for a fully correlated Poissonian multibeam photon source in which the transmitted beam is conditioned by photon number measurements on the remaining beams with non-ideal multiphoton counters. We show that significant rejection of insecure photon pulses from a twin-beam source cannot be obtained with a detector having a realistic quantum efficiency. However quantum-correlated (quadruplet or octuplet) multiplet photon sources conditioned by high efficiency multiphoton counters could provide large improvements in the secure channel capacity and the secure distribution range of high loss systems such as those using the low earth orbit satellite links proposed for global quantum key distribution. Received 14 July and Received in final form 20 November 2001     

Enhanced four-wave mixing in a hollow-core photonic-crystal fiber

Hollow-core photonic-crystal fibers are shown to substantially enhance four-wave mixing (FWM) of laser pulses in a gas filling the fiber core. Picosecond pulses of Nd:YAG fundamental radiation and its second harmonic are used to generate a signal at the frequency of the third harmonic by the FWM process 3omega = 2omega + 2omega - omega. The efficiency achieved for this process in a 9-cm-long, 13-microm-hollow-core-diameter photonic-crystal fiber, designed to simultaneously transmit a two-color pump and the FWM signal, is shown to be approximately 800 times higher than the maximum FWM efficiency attainable with the same laser pulses in the tight-focusing regime.     

Dephasing in the presence of a two-dimensional electron gas at high magnetic fields

By means of degenerate four-wave mixing (FWM), we investigate the quantum coherence of electron–hole pairs in the presence of a two-dimensional electron gas in modulation-doped GaAs–AlGaAs quantum wells in the regime of the integer quantum-Hall effect. We observe large jumps in the decay time of the FWM signal at even Landau level filling factors. The main features of the experimental observations can be qualitatively reproduced by a model which takes into account the number of unoccupied states within the highest partially occupied Landau level. Furthermore, we observe quantum beats between up to three different Landau level transitions.     

Kerr non-linearity and four-wave mixing in a double-cascade type four-level system of multiple quantum wells

We study the non-linear optical response in multiple quantum wells structure with a double-cascade type four-level configuration based on excitons and biexcitons transitions. By analysing the Kerr non-linear effects, we obtain the slow, mutually matched group velocities and giant Kerr non-linearity of probe and signal fields. While when the signal (or probe) field is removed, the non-linear optical phenomenon four-wave mixing (FWM) originating from quantum interference is demonstrated. The FWM efficiency of the system study is about 50%. Such a semiconductor system is much more practical than its atomic counterpart because of its flexible design and the controllable interference strength.     

长脉冲抽运光子晶体光纤四波混频和超连续谱的理论研究

本文数值研究了长脉冲抽运光子晶体光纤四波混频和超连续谱的产生.依据准连续波近似下的相位匹配条件和能量守恒定律,能够理论上确定在光子晶体光纤正常色散区抽运时,四波混频效应产生的信号光和空闲光波长;以及在光纤反常色散区抽运时,调制不稳现象产生的两个对称旁瓣波长.利用自适应分步傅里叶法,定量地模拟了利用波长为1064 nm的亚纳秒激光器抽运两种不同色散特性的光子晶体光纤四波混频效应和超连续谱的产生,模拟结果与实验结果符合非常好. 关键词： 光子晶体光纤 超连续谱 四波混频 自适应分步傅里叶法     

Josephson junction as a detector of poissonian charge injection

We propose a scheme of measuring the non-Gaussian character of noise by a hysteretic Josephson junction in the macroscopic quantum tunneling regime. We model the detector as an (under)damped LC resonator. It transforms Poissonian charge injection into current through the detector, which samples the injection statistics over a floating time window of length approximately Q/omega(J), where Q is the quality factor of the resonator and omega(J) its resonance frequency. This scheme ought to reveal the Poisson character of charge injection in a detector with realistic parameters.     

Relative intensity noise induced by four-wave mixing in the case of two-wave transmission in an optical fiber

Four-wave mixing (FWM) is a significant nonlinear effect in wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) fiber-optic systems. For two-wave transmission, it is easily found that the FWM noise power decreases with frequency spacing and increases with signal power. However, the variation of relative intensity noise (RIN) with frequency spacing and signal power is only 2 dB at most. The intensity fluctuations induced by the energy exchange between the FWM generated new waves and the original ones are trivial and the influence of FWM on RIN can be neglected. It is also found that the increase of RIN with signal power is mainly attributed to stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) rather than FWM.     

On the distribution of 1550-nm photon pairs efficiently generated using a periodically poled lithium niobate waveguide

We report on efficient generation of 1550-nm photon pairs in a periodically poled lithium niobate waveguide using the spontaneous parametric down-conversion process. Such photon pairs are expected to find applications in fiber-based long-distance quantum communication. Pumping the waveguide with a pulsed semiconductor laser with a pulse rate of 800 kHz and a maximum average pump power of 50 μW, we obtain a coincidence rate of 600 s⁻¹. Despite only two single-photon detectors are used, we gain some information about the photon-number distribution. Our measurements are found to be in agreement with a Poissonian photon-pair distribution, but clearly differ from the expected outcomes for both conventional and two-mode squeezed states, the latter corresponding to a thermal photon-pair distribution. The Poissonian photon-pair distribution is also explained by comparing the coherence time of the pump light and of the detected photons. An average of 0.9 generated photon pairs per pulse can thus be inferred.     

Characterization of the pairwise correlations in different quantum networks consisting of four-wave mixers and beamsplitters

We investigate the performances of the pairwise correlations(PCs) in different quantum networks consisting of fourwave mixers(FWMs) and beamsplitters(BSs). PCs with quantum correlation in different quantum networks can be verified by calculating the degree of relative intensity squeezing for any pair of all the output fields. More interestingly, the quantum correlation recovery and enhancement are present in the FWM+BS network and the repulsion effect phenomena(signal(idler)-frequency mode cannot be quantum correlated with the other two idler(signal)-frequency modes simultaneously)between the PCs with quantum correlation are predicted in the FWM + FWM and FWM + FWM + FWM networks. Our results presented here pave the way for the manipulation of the quantum correlation in quantum networks.     

20-Gb/s and Higher Bit Rate Optical Wavelength Conversion for RZ-DPSK Signal Based on Four-Wave Mixing in Semiconductor Optical Amplifier

We investigate 20 Gb/s wavelength conversion for return-to-zero differential phase-shift keying (RZ-DPSK) signal using four-wave mixing (FWM) in a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA). We show that the 10-Gb/s RZ-DPSK signal-to-pump ratio increases up to -0.286 dB with Q factor improvement of 1.663 dB for increasing the cascadeability of optical networks. The effect of variation in bandwidth for an ideal dual-arm Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) is illustrated. For different bit rates, the converted power signal is investigated with increase in signal input power. We show that the quality of converted signal is best before the saturation of SOA. The dependence of four-wave mixing (FWM) efficiency and converted signal power with signal input power is also studied, and it is found that FWM efficiency decreases with increase in signal input power.

The impact of signal-to-pump power ratio, unsaturated amplifier gain, and pump power is further optimized with minimum Q factor penalty for 10-Gb/s and 20-Gb/s bit rate. We show that converted signal power increases up to power saturation level and then starts decreasing. We also show that with higher bit rate, we have a wide range of choices for pump power signal. We further investigate the quality of converted signal at 10 Gb/s, which shows an improvement over signal input power. Finally, the increase in transmission distance after wavelength conversion is investigated.     

FDTD simulation of wavelength conversion of ultrashort pulses utilizing intersubband absorption in AlGaN/GaN quantum wells

The four-wave mixing (FWM) characteristics of 500-fs pulses in nonlinear optical waveguides utilizing the saturation of the intersubband absorption at 1.55 μm in nitride multiple quantum wells are calculated by a one-dimensional finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method combined with three-level rate equations describing the intersubband carrier dynamics. Efficiency for a 100-nm wavelength conversion in a 160-μm waveguide is predicted to be higher than 3% both for up- and down-conversions. The extinction ratio is higher than 20 dB. As for the short-pulse application, however, the conversion efficiency is strongly dependent on the phase difference between the pump and signal pulses, especially when the efficiency is high. This causes ambiguity in the output power. Therefore, the cross-loss-modulation (XLM) converter is preferable to the FWM converter for OTDM application. The FWM converters are considered to be applicable to simultaneous conversion of WDM signals.     

20-Gb/s and Higher Bit Rate Optical Wavelength Conversion for RZ-DPSK Signal Based on Four-Wave Mixing in Semiconductor Optical Amplifier

Abstract

We investigate 20 Gb/s wavelength conversion for return-to-zero differential phase-shift keying (RZ-DPSK) signal using four-wave mixing (FWM) in a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA). We show that the 10-Gb/s RZ-DPSK signal-to-pump ratio increases up to ?0.286 dB with Q factor improvement of 1.663 dB for increasing the cascadeability of optical networks. The effect of variation in bandwidth for an ideal dual-arm Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) is illustrated. For different bit rates, the converted power signal is investigated with increase in signal input power. We show that the quality of converted signal is best before the saturation of SOA. The dependence of four-wave mixing (FWM) efficiency and converted signal power with signal input power is also studied, and it is found that FWM efficiency decreases with increase in signal input power.

The impact of signal-to–pump power ratio, unsaturated amplifier gain, and pump power is further optimized with minimum Q factor penalty for 10-Gb/s and 20-Gb/s bit rate. We show that converted signal power increases up to power saturation level and then starts decreasing. We also show that with higher bit rate, we have a wide range of choices for pump power signal. We further investigate the quality of converted signal at 10 Gb/s, which shows an improvement over signal input power. Finally, the increase in transmission distance after wavelength conversion is investigated.     

Quantum cascade structure for mid-IR four-wave mixing

The design and modeling of a quantum cascade optical amplifier (QCOA) using intra-cavity non-linear interactions to achieve wavelength conversion is proposed. The model is based on the nonlinear equation coupled with Maxwell wave equations for different emission modes. In the proposed structure, four wave mixing (FWM) output exhibits a peak as a function of pump and probe frequency if they are tuned to the energy levels of the QC structure subbands. Results demonstrate that the FWM output signal power significantly depends on how subbands are engineered and interact with optical pulses which propagate in multi layer medium. In addition, we show that by adjusting pump and probe signal frequencies, FWM output power can be tuned.     

Generation and Manipulation of Spin-Orbit Coupling mode via Four-Wave Mixing with Quantum Interference

Recently, the vectorial nonlinear optical processes driven by spin-orbit coupling (SOC) light have come to the fore, leading to striking optical phenomena and important applications both in classical and quantum optics. However, research on the SOC-mediated light-atom interactions is still in its infancy. Here, the generation and manipulation of SOC mode through a vectorial four-wave mixing (FWM) process in ⁸⁵Rb vapor is demonstrated. Under the excitation of two SOC pump beams, multiple FWM paths can be simultaneously established due to the rich atomic Zeeman sublevels coupling with different circularly polarized components of SOC fields. A higher-order cylindrical or more general SOC FWM signal is observed in the vectorial FWM process, which obeys angular momentum conservation and Gouy phase matching. In particular, quantum interference between different FWM paths plays a crucial role in manipulating the SOC mode of the generated FWM signal, revealing that the conversion of SOC mode is intrinsically quantum. This work provides a pathway toward deeper insight into the vectorial nonlinear optical processes and may advance technology for shaping spatially structured light, which is essential in applications such as nonlinear polarization imaging and the optical communication realm.     

High-performance guided-wave asynchronous heralded single-photon source

We report on a guided-wave asynchronous heralded single-photon source based on the creation of nondegenerate photon pairs by spontaneous parametric downconversion in a periodically poled lithium niobate wave-guide. We show that, by use of the signal photon at 1310 nm as a trigger, a gated detection process permits announcement of the arrival of single photons at 1550 nm at the output of a single-mode optical fiber with a high probability of 0.37. At the same time the multiphoton emission probability is reduced by a factor of 10 compared with Poissonian light sources. Furthermore, the model we have developed to calculate those figures of merit is shown to be accurate. This study can therefore serve as a paradigm for the conception of new quantum communication and computation networks.     

Quantum Integrability in Systems with Finite Number of Levels

We consider the problem of defining quantum integrability in systems with finite number of energy levels starting from commuting matrices and construct new general classes of such matrix models with a given number of commuting partners. We argue that if the matrices depend on a (real) parameter, one can define quantum integrability from this feature alone, leading to specific results such as exact solvability, Poissonian energy level statistics and to level crossings.     

Observation of unique photon statistics of single artificial atom laser

We demonstrate a photonic crystal nanocavity laser essentially driven by a self-assembled InAs/GaAs single quantum dot gain and its unique photon statistics. Gain tuning measurements and photon correlation measurements indicated that a single quantum dot plays a substantial role in the laser oscillation. Photon correlation measurements showed a distinct transition from anti-bunching to Poissonian via photon bunching around the threshold with the increase of the excitation power. Numerical simulations, including contributions of other light sources besides a single quantum dot, indicated that the photon bunching feature around the threshold can be enhanced by the interfusion of incoherent photons into the cavity mode.