Nonreciprocal Photon Blockade

Ran Huang, Adam Miranowicz, Jie-Qiao Liao, Franco Nori, and Hui Jing

Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 153601 – Published 12 October 2018

Abstract

We propose how to create and manipulate one-way nonclassical light via photon blockade in rotating nonlinear devices. We refer to this effect as nonreciprocal photon blockade (PB). Specifically, we show that in a spinning Kerr resonator, PB happens when the resonator is driven in one direction but not the other. This occurs because of the Fizeau drag, leading to a full split of the resonance frequencies of the countercirculating modes. Different types of purely quantum correlations, such as single- and two-photon blockades, can emerge in different directions in a well-controlled manner, and the transition from PB to photon-induced tunneling is revealed as well. Our work opens up a new route to achieve quantum nonreciprocal devices, which are crucial elements in chiral quantum technologies or topological photonics.

Received 25 July 2018

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.153601

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Quantum optics

Atomic, Molecular & Optical

Authors & Affiliations

Ran Huang¹, Adam Miranowicz^2,3, Jie-Qiao Liao¹, Franco Nori^2,4, and Hui Jing^1,*

¹Key Laboratory of Low-Dimensional Quantum Structures and Quantum Control of Ministry of Education, Department of Physics and Synergetic Innovation Center for Quantum Effects and Applications, Hunan Normal University, Changsha 410081, China
²Theoretical Quantum Physics Laboratory, RIKEN Cluster for Pioneering Research, Wako-shi, Saitama 351-0198, Japan
³Faculty of Physics, Adam Mickiewicz University, 61-614 Poznań, Poland
⁴Physics Department, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1040, USA

^*Corresponding author. jinghui73@foxmail.com

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Vol. 121, Iss. 15 — 12 October 2018

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Figure 1
Nonreciprocal 1PB in a spinning Kerr resonator. 1PB arises due to the anharmonic spacing of the energy levels $| n ⟩$ . Here we take $n = 0$ , 1, 2, and $ℏ = 1$ , for simplicity. By fixing the CCW rotation of the resonator (the angular speed $Ω$ fulfills the condition $Δ_{F} = \pm U / 2$ ), under the same driving power $P_{in} = 2 fW$ and the same detuning $Δ_{L} = - U / 2$ , i.e., $k = 1 - Δ_{L} / U = 1.5$ , (a) 1PB emerges by driving the device from its left side ( $Δ_{F} > 0$ ), while (b) PIT caused by two-photon resonance occurs by driving from the right side ( $Δ_{F} < 0$ ). This PIT exhibits $g^{(μ)} (0) > 1$ ( $μ = 2$ , 3, 4) [73].
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Figure 2
The second-order correlation function $g^{(2)} (0)$ versus the tuning parameter $k$ for different input directions. At $k = 1.5$ , 1PB (red curve) or PIT (blue curve) occurs by driving the device from the left or right side, with the same strength. Here $P_{in} = 2 fW$ , $Ω = 29 kHz$ for the spinning resonator, and $g_{0}^{(2)} (0)$ corresponds to a nonspinning resonator (green). Note that $Ω$ is related to $Δ_{F}$ by Eq. (1). For the other parameter values, see the main text. On the scale of this figure, there are no differences between our numerical and (approximate) analytical results [73].
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Figure 3
(a) The correlation functions $g^{(3)} (0)$ (solid curves) and $g^{(2)} (0)$ (dashed curves) versus the tuning parameter $k$ for different driving directions. Note that at $k = 2.5$ , 2PB can emerge by driving the system from the left side (orange), while PIT occurs by driving from the right side (blue). In (b), 2PB is confirmed by the criteria given in Eq. (8) for the CW mode. (c) This nonreciprocal 2PB can also be recognized from the deviations of the photon distribution to the standard Poisson distribution with the same mean photon number. (d) The energy-level diagram shows the origin of this unidirectional 2PB: with enhanced driving power $P_{in} = 0.3 pW$ , by choosing $Δ_{L} = - 3 U / 2$ (i.e., $k = 2.5$ ), 2PB emerges by driving the device from the left ( $Δ_{F} > 0$ ), while three-photon resonance-induced PIT emerges by driving from the right side ( $Δ_{F} < 0$ ). The other parameters are the same as those in Fig. 2.
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Figure 4
(a) The correlation functions $g^{(3)} (0)$ (solid curves) and $g^{(2)} (0)$ (dashed curves) versus the tuning parameter $k$ for different driving directions. 1PB can emerge around $k = 1.5$ by driving from the left side (orange), while 2PB occurs by driving from the right side (blue). In (b), 2PB is confirmed by the criteria given in Eq. (8) for the CCW mode. (c) This 1PB-2PB nonreciprocity can also be recognized from the relative photon population numbers in the resonator. For all plots, the parameters are the same as those in Fig. 3.
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