All-Optical Switch and Transistor Gated by One Stored Photon

Chen, Wenlan; Beck, Kristin M.; Bücker, Robert; Gullans, Michael; Lukin, Mikhail D.; Tanji-Suzuki, Haruka; Vuletić, Vladan

doi:10.1126/science.1238169

Cited by 327 publications

(269 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…For example, Tanji-Suzuki and co-workers used an ensemble of three-level atoms to implement vacuum-induced transparency 32 an inherently nonlinear system 56 in which the classical control beam of EIT is replaced by a cavity vacuum field. With four-level atoms, Chen and co-workers have realized an optical transistor gated by just one stored photon 57 .…”

Section: Quantum Nonlinear Optics Using Atomic Ensemblesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Quantum nonlinear optics — photon by photon

2014

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other. This linearity in light propagation, in combination with the high frequency and hence large bandwidth provided by waves at optical frequencies, has made optical signals the preferred method for communicating information over long distances. In contrast, the processing of information requires some form of interaction between signals. In the case of light, such interactions can be enabled by nonlinear optical processes. These processes, which are now found ubiquitously throughout science and technology, include optical modulation and switching, nonlinear spectroscopy and frequency conversion 1 , and have applications across both the physical 2 and biological 3,4 sciences.A long-standing goal in optical science has been the implementation of nonlinear effects at progressively lower light powers or pulse energies. The ultimate limit may be termed 'quantum nonlinear optics' (Box 1) -the regime where individual photons interact so strongly with one another that the propagation of light pulses containing one, two or more photons varies substantially with photon number. Although this domain is difficult to reach owing to the small nonlinear coefficients of bulk optical materials, the potential payoff is significant. The realization of quantum nonlinear optics could improve the performance of classical nonlinear devices, enabling, for example, fast energy-efficient optical transistors that avoid Ohmic heating 5 . Furthermore, nonlinear switches activated by single photons could enable optical quantum information processing and communication 6 , as well as other applications that rely on the generation and manipulation of non-classical light fields 7,8 . The challenge of making photons interactAt low optical powers, most optical materials exhibit only linear optical phenomena, such as refraction and absorption, which can be described by a complex index of refraction. However, a sufficiently intense light beam can modify a material's index of refraction, such that the light propagation becomes power-dependent. This is the essence of classical nonlinear optics (Box 1). Large optical fields are required to alter the index of refraction of conventional bulk materials because a strong nonlinear response can only be induced if the electric field of the light beam acting on the electrons is comparable to the field of the nucleus. As a result, early experimental observations of nonlinear optical phenomena, such as frequencydoubling or sum-frequency generation 9 , were achievable only after the development of powerful lasers. Advances in nonlinear optics over the past four decades have resulted in progressively more efficient nonlinear processes 10 , thus enabling the observation of nonlinear processes at lower and lower light levels. It is natural to inquire if and how these nonlinear interactions can be made so strong that they become important even at the level of individual quanta of radiation. Although this question was addressed in early theoretical studies [11][12][13] , it has become more pressing with the advent of...

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Section: Quantum Nonlinear Optics Using Atomic Ensemblesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Quantum nonlinearities also enable classical nonlinear optical devices, such as routers 77,78 or all-optical switches, to be operated at their fundamental limit. One example is the case of a singlephoton transistor 79 , in which even a single 'gate' photon can switch hundreds of signal photons 57 .…”

Section: Applications Of Quantum Nonlinear Opticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantum nonlinear optics — photon by photon

2014

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“…However, naturally occurring nonlinear optical coefficients are insufficient for these applications. Several different approaches have been taken to tackle the problem of very weak nonlinearities, including the use of photonic crystal fibres [5], Rydberg atoms [6][7][8][9], atoms in hollow-core fibers [10], single atoms coupled to microresonators [11] and even proposals to amplify the magnitude of existing nonlinear optical effects [12]. Schmidt and Imamoglu proposed a scheme [13] based on electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) [14] which allowed for "giant", resonantly-enhanced optical nonlinearities while simultaneously eliminating absorption.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Short-pulse cross-phase modulation in an electromagnetically-induced-transparency medium

2016

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Electromagnetically-induced transparency (EIT) has been proposed as a way to greatly enhance cross-phase modulation, with the possibility of leading to few-photon-level optical nonlinearities. This enhancement grows as the transparency window width, ∆EIT , is narrowed. Decreasing ∆EIT , however, increases the response time of the effect, suggesting that for pulses of a given duration, there could be a fundamental limit to the strength of the nonlinearity. We show that in the regimes of most practical interest -narrow EIT windows perturbed by short signal pulses-the enhancement offered by EIT is not only in the magnitude of the nonlinear phase shift but in fact also in its increased duration. That is, for the case of signal pulses much shorter (temporally) than the inverse EIT bandwidth, the narrow window serves to prolong the effect of the passing signal pulse, leading to an integrated phase shift that grows linearly with 1/∆EIT even though the peak phase shift may saturate; the continued growth of the integrated phase shift improves the detectability of the phase shift, in principle without bound. For many purposes, it is this detectability which is of interest, more than the absolute magnitude of the peak phase shift. We present analytical expressions based on a linear time-invariant model that accounts for the temporal behavior of the cross-phase modulation for several parameter ranges of interest. We conclude that in order to optimize the detectability of the EIT-based cross-phase shift, one should use the narrowest possible EIT window, and a signal pulse that is as broadband as the excited state linewidth and detuned by half a linewidth.

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“…The normalized cross-correlation function violates the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality, confirming the nonclassical character of the correlations. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.033602 Photons are unique carriers of quantum information that can be strongly interfaced with atoms for quantum state generation and processing [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]. Quantum state detection, a particular type of processing, is at the heart of quantum mechanics and has profound implications for quantum information technologies.…”

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Partially Nondestructive Continuous Detection of Individual Traveling Optical Photons

et al. 2016

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We report the continuous and partially nondestructive measurement of optical photons. For a weak light pulse traveling through a slow-light optical medium (signal), the associated atomic-excitation component is detected by another light beam (probe) with the aid of an optical cavity. We observe strong correlations of g ð2Þ sp ¼ 4.4ð5Þ between the transmitted signal and probe photons. The observed (intrinsic) conditional nondestructive quantum efficiency ranges between 13% and 1% (65% and 5%) for a signal transmission range of 2% to 35%, at a typical time resolution of 2.5 μs. The maximal observed (intrinsic) device nondestructive quantum efficiency, defined as the product of the conditional nondestructive quantum efficiency and the signal transmission, is 0.5% (2.4%). The normalized cross-correlation function violates the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality, confirming the nonclassical character of the correlations. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.033602 Photons are unique carriers of quantum information that can be strongly interfaced with atoms for quantum state generation and processing [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]. Quantum state detection, a particular type of processing, is at the heart of quantum mechanics and has profound implications for quantum information technologies. Photons are standardly detected by converting a photon's energy into a measurable signal, thereby destroying the photon. Nondestructive photon detection, which is of interest for many quantum optical technologies [10][11][12], is possible through strong nonlinear interactions [12] that ideally form a quantum nondemolition measurement [13]. To date, quantum nondemolition measurement of single microwave photons bound to cooled cavities has been demonstrated with high fidelity using Rydberg atoms [14][15][16], and in a circuit cavity quantum electrodynamics system using a superconducting qubit [17].For quantum communication and many other photonics quantum information applications [18,19], it is desirable to detect traveling optical photons instead of photons bound to cavities. Previously, a single-photon transistor was realized using an atomic ensemble inside a high finesse cavity where one stored photon blocked the transmission of more than one cavity photon and could still be retrieved [5]. Such strong cross-modulation [20] can be used for all-optical destructive detection of the stored optical photon, but the parameters in that experiment did not allow nondestructive detection with any appreciable efficiency. High-efficiency pulsed nondestructive optical detection has recently been achieved using a single atom in a cavity [21]. In that implementation, the atomic state is prepared in 250 μs, altered by the interaction with an optical pulse reflected from the cavity, and read out in 25 μs.In this Letter, we realize partially nondestructive, continuous detection of traveling optical photons with microsecond time resolution. The signal photons to be detected propagate through an atomic ensemble as slow-light polaritons [22] under conditions of electro...

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All-Optical Switch and Transistor Gated by One Stored Photon

Cited by 327 publications

References 30 publications

Quantum nonlinear optics — photon by photon

Quantum nonlinear optics — photon by photon

Short-pulse cross-phase modulation in an electromagnetically-induced-transparency medium

Partially Nondestructive Continuous Detection of Individual Traveling Optical Photons

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