Quantum storage of single photons with unknown arrival time and pulse shapes

We present a scheme for the quantum storage of single photons using electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in a low-finesse optical cavity, assisted by state-selected spontaneous atomic emission. Mediated by the dark mode of cavity EIT, the destructive quantum interference between the cavity input-output channel and state-selected atomic spontaneous emission leads to strong absorption of single photons with unknown arrival time and pulse shapes. We discuss the application of this phenomenon to photon counting using stored light.     

两模腔中的参量上转换和下转换

提出了一种通过建立双线性二次哈密顿量在量子腔中实现参量上转换和下转换的方案.通常在非线性过程中,介质本身不参与能量的净交换,但光波频率可以发生转换的作用称为参量转换作用.此方案建立在一个四能级原子同时与两经典场和两量子场相互作用的基础上,理论属于非线性光学四波混频范畴.将原子制备在合适的能级上,经典光场与相应的能级发生共振,而同时量子光场与相应的能级产生大失谐相互作用,在强相互作用区域内,原子和腔场失耦合,进而实现腔模的参量转换.根据所制备初始能级的不同以及光场激发能级的差异,分别实现了参量上转换和参量下转换.在利用参量下转换制备压缩算符后,对实验的可行性进行了讨论,并且给出了理论值.结果表明：在级联三能原子中采用一个级联双光子过程代替了原来的两个偶极禁戒跃迁间的经典驱动,可以保证高的不同频率之间的转换效率,并且用于光的量子操控和量子信息处理.     

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.     

Plasmonic-photonic cavity for high-efficiency single-photon blockade

The generation and manipulation of single photons are crucial in advanced quantum technologies, such as quantum communication and quantum computation devices. High-purity single photons can be generated from classical light using the single-photon blockade(1 PB). However, the efficiency and purity are exclusive in 1 PB, which hinders its practical applications. Here, we show that the resonantly coupled plasmonic-photonic cavity can boost the efficiency of single-photon generation by more than three orders of magnitude compared with that of all-dielectric microcavity. This significant improvement is attributed to two new mechanisms of atom-microcavity coupling after introducing the plasmonic cavity: the formation of a quasi-bound state and the transition to the nonreciprocal regime, due to the destructive interference between the coupling pathways and the nonzero relative phase of the closed-loop coupling, respectively. The quasi-bound state has a relatively small decaying, while its effective coupling strength is significantly enhanced. Suppressing the dissipative component of the effective atom-microcavity coupling in the nonreciprocal regime can further improve single-photon performance, particularly without temporal oscillations. Our study demonstrates the possibility of enhancing the intrinsically low efficiency of 1 PB in low excitation regime, and unveils the novel light-matter interaction in hybrid cavities.     

Efficient quantum private comparison protocol utilizing single photons and rotational encryption

As a branch of quantum secure multiparty computation, quantum private comparison is applied frequently in many fields, such as secret elections, private voting, and identification. A quantum private comparison protocol with higher efficiency and easier implementation is proposed in this paper. The private secrets are encoded as single polarized photons and then encrypted with a homomorphic rotational encryption method. Relying on this method and the circular transmission mode, we implement the multiplexing of photons, raising the efficiency of our protocol to 100%. Our protocol is easy to realize since only single photons, unitary operation, and single-particle measurement are introduced. Meanwhile, the analysis shows that our protocol is also correct and secure.     

Subnatural linewidth single photons from a quantum dot

The observation of quantum-dot resonance fluorescence enabled a new solid-state approach to generating single photons with a bandwidth approaching the natural linewidth of a quantum-dot transition. Here, we operate in the small Rabi frequency limit of resonance fluorescence--the Heitler regime--to generate subnatural linewidth and high-coherence quantum light from a single quantum dot. The measured single-photon coherence is 30 times longer than the lifetime of the quantum-dot transition, and the single photons exhibit a linewidth which is inherited from the excitation laser. In contrast, intensity-correlation measurements reveal that this photon source maintains a high degree of antibunching behavior on the order of the transition lifetime with vanishing two-photon scattering probability. Generating decoherence-free phase-locked single photons from multiple quantum systems will be feasible with our approach.     

Entropy change and information gain in photon counting measurement

Entropy change in a quantum state of cavity photons is investigated in the continuous measurement of photon number that is characterized by the quantum Markov process. It is shown that the average value of the entropy change in the quantum state of cavity photons is equal to the Shannon mutual information obtained from the outcome exhibited by the photodetector. Furthermore it is found that the entropy change reflects the photon statistics of the quantum state of cavity photons.     

Dicke quantum spin glass of atoms and photons

Recent studies of strongly interacting atoms and photons in optical cavities have rekindled interest in the Dicke model of atomic qubits coupled to discrete photon cavity modes. We study the multimode Dicke model with variable atom-photon couplings. We argue that a quantum spin-glass phase can appear, with a random linear combination of the cavity modes superradiant. We compute atomic and photon spectral response functions across this quantum phase transition, both of which should be accessible in experiments.     

Transformation of single-photon wave packets in quantum storage with a tunable cavity

Optimal conditions for transformation of the waveform of single photons generated via cavity-enhanced spontaneous parametric down-conversion by means of optical quantum storage, in which an extended resonant medium in a tunable cavity is used as information carrier, are determined.     

High-Speed Quantum Transducer with a Single-Photon Emitter in a 2D Resonator

Quantum transducers can transfer quantum information between different systems. Microwave–optical photon conversion is important for future quantum networks to interconnect remote superconducting quantum computers with optical fibers. Here, a high-speed quantum transducer based on a single-photon emitter in an atomically thin membrane resonator, that can couple single microwave photons to single optical photons, is proposed. The 2D resonator is a freestanding van der Waals heterostructure (which may consist of hexagonal boron nitride, graphene, or other 2D materials) that hosts a quantum emitter. The mechanical vibration (phonon) of the 2D resonator interacts with optical photons by shifting the optical transition frequency of the single-photon emitter with strain or the Stark effect. The mechanical vibration couples to microwave photons by shifting the resonant frequency of an LC circuit that includes the membrane. Thanks to the small mass of the 2D resonator, both the single-photon optomechanical coupling strength and the electromechanical coupling strength can reach the strong coupling regime. This provides a way for high-speed quantum state transfer between a microwave photon, a phonon, and an optical photon.     

Self-organization of a Bose-Einstein condensate in an optical cavity

The spatial self-organization of a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in a high-finesse linear optical cavity is discussed. The condensate atoms are laser-driven from the side and scatter photons into the cavity. Above a critical pump intensity the homogeneous condensate evolves into a stable pattern bound by the cavity field. The transition point is determined analytically from a mean-field theory. We calculate the lowest lying Bogoliubov excitations of the coupled BEC-cavity system and the quantum depletion due to the atom-field coupling.     

Photon antibunching from a single quantum-dot-microcavity system in the strong coupling regime

We observe antibunching in the photons emitted from a strongly coupled single quantum dot and pillar microcavity in resonance. When the quantum dot was spectrally detuned from the cavity mode, the cavity emission remained antibunched, and also anticorrelated from the quantum dot emission. Resonant pumping of the selected quantum dot via an excited state enabled these observations by eliminating the background emitters that are usually coupled to the cavity. This device demonstrates an on-demand single-photon source operating in the strong coupling regime, with a Purcell factor of 61+/-7 and quantum efficiency of 97%.     

Quasiresonance interaction between a multiphoton field and a material

It is shown that the number of branches in the energy spectrum of a multiphoton field in a dispersive medium increases together with the number of photons. The kinetics of an individual quantum cannot be considered independently of the evolution of the field as a whole, even if the interaction between the field and each molecule of the medium is linear. The probabilities of the processes which accompany the transition of a quantum from one branch of the spectrum to another are calculated.     

Optical bistability in a three-level semiconductor quantum-well system

Optical bistable behavior in a unidirectional ring cavity (or a Fabry–Pérot cavity) containing a semiconductor quantum well, described as a three-level ladder-type system with similar transition energies, has been studied. The system interacts with a strong driving field which is in two-photon resonance with the intersubband transition and thus simultaneously drives all three levels into phase-locked quantum coherence. The threshold for switching to upper branch of the bistable curve is found to be reduced due to the presence of quantum interference. Such system can be used for making efficient and fast all-optical switching devices. PACS 78.67.De; 42.50.Hz; 78.20.Bh     

Spontaneous two-photon emission from a single quantum dot

Spontaneous two-photon emission from a solid-state single quantum emitter is observed. We investigated photoluminescence from the neutral biexciton in a single semiconductor quantum dot coupled with a high Q photonic crystal nanocavity. When the cavity is resonant to the half energy of the biexciton, the strong vacuum field in the cavity inspires the biexciton to simultaneously emit two photons into the mode, resulting in clear emission enhancement of the mode. Meanwhile, the suppression of other single photon emission from the biexciton was observed, as the two-photon emission process becomes faster than the others at the resonance.     

Photon production from the vacuum close to the superradiant transition: linking the dynamical Casimir effect to the Kibble-Zurek mechanism

The dynamical Casimir effect (DCE) predicts the generation of photons from the vacuum due to the parametric amplification of the quantum fluctuations of an electromagnetic field. The verification of such an effect is still elusive in optical systems due to the very demanding requirements of its experimental implementation. We show that an ensemble of two-level atoms collectively coupled to the electromagnetic field of a cavity, driven at low frequencies and close to a quantum phase transition, stimulates the production of photons from the vacuum. This paves the way to an effective simulation of the DCE through a mechanism that has recently found experimental demonstration. The spectral properties of the emitted radiation reflect the critical nature of the system and allow us to link the detection of the DCE to the Kibble-Zurek mechanism for the production of defects when crossing a continuous phase transition.     

关于电路量子电动力学系统中光子自由度的消除方案

基于超导传输线和超导量子比特相互耦合的电路量子电动力学(quantum Electrodynamics, QED)系统, 是目前固态量子信息领域的一个倍受关注的物理系统, 也是研究量子测量和量子控制的理想实验平台. 由于其中涉及的驱动场和超导传输线谐振腔支持的光子频率都在微波区, 在量子测量和量子控制研究中往往遇到 大量光子数引起的状态空间维数过大带来的数值模拟方面的困难. 为了避免这个困难, 往往采取"消除"光子自由度的办法, 建立一个只保留量子比特状态自由度的有效描述方案. 本文通过对单比特的量子测量动力学的数值模拟, 检验了 "绝热消除"和"极化子变换"两种方案的适用条件. 结果表明, 在量子非破坏(quantum non-demolition, QND) 测量情况下, 极化子变换精确适用于 任意驱动强度和任意(光子)泄漏速率微腔; 但在非QND测量情况下, 极化子变换相对通常的绝热消除方案, 并无优势. 在强泄漏微腔和弱耦合情况下, 两种消除光子自由度的方法都可以较好地描述 测量动力学; 但如果微腔光子泄漏速率不是很大或量子比特与微腔耦合较强, 则需要纳入光子自由度做完整模拟, 此时的量子测量属性是一个尚待研究的课题.     

The hybrid quantum computer

In this paper, we look at the possibility of realizing one-way quantum computing through a hybrid quantum computing architecture based on stationary qubits inside an optical cavity and flying qubits (photons). It has been shown that direct qubit-qubit interactions for two-qubit gate implementations can be replaced by the experimentally less demanding generation of single photons on demand and linear optics photon pair measurements. The outcomes of these measurements indicate either the completion of the gate or the presence of the original qubits, such that the operation can be repeated until success.     

Quantum field theoretical study of an effective spin model in coupled optical cavity arrays

Atoms trapped in micro-cavities and interacting through the exchange of virtual photons can be modeled as an anisotropic Heisenberg spin-1/2 lattice. We do the quantum field theoretical study of such a system using the Abelian bosonization method followed by the renormalization group analysis. An infinite order Berezinskii-Kosterliz-Thouless transition is replaced by second order XY transition even when an infinitesimal anisotropy in exchange coupling is introduced. We predict a quantum phase transition between the photonic Coulomb blocked induce Mott insulating and photonic superfluid phases due to detuning between the cavity and laser frequency. A large detuning favors the photonic superfluid phase. We also perform the analysis of Jaynes and Cumming Hamiltonian to support the results of quantum field theoretical study.     

Hidden Vacuum Rabi Oscillations:Dynamical Quantum Superpositions of On/Off Interaction between a Single Quantum Dot and a Microcavity

We show that it is possible to realize quantum superpositions of switched-on and-off strong light-matter interaction in a single quantum dot-semiconductor microcavity system.Such superpositions enable the observation of counterintuitive quantum conditional dynamics effects.Situations are possible where cavity photons as well as the emitter luminescence display exponential decay but their joint detection probability exhibits vacuum Rabi oscillations.Remarkably,these quantum correlations are also present in the nonequilibrium steady state spectra of such coherently driven dissipative quantum systems.