Nonlinearity sensing via photon-statistics excitation spectroscopy

Abstract

We propose photon-statistics excitation spectroscopy as an adequate tool to describe the optical response of a nonlinear system. To this end we suggest to use optical excitation with varying photon statistics as another spectroscopic degree of freedom to gather information about the system in question. The responses of several simple model systems to excitation beams with different photon statistics are discussed. Possible spectroscopic applications in terms of identifying lasing operation are pointed out.

Photon-Statistics Excitation Spectroscopy of a Quantum-Dot Micropillar Laser

“…As has been pointed out by some of the authors recently, systems showing a thresholdlike behavior in their response to coherent optical excitation should yield a clear signature of that nonlinearity already at significantly lower excitation densities when excited using thermal light [14]. Here we demonstrate this effect for a quantum-dot based verticalcavity surface-emitting laser.…”

“…During the last few years, experimental techniques aimed at studies of photon number statistics have improved significantly [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11], as has the fundamental understanding of photon number statistics [12]. Recently, some emphasis has also been placed upon using the quantum statistics of the excitation light field as a degree of freedom in spectroscopy [13][14][15][16] and quantum-optical spectroscopy has recently been applied to reveal significant physical effects and new quasiparticles, such as dropletons [17,18]. The lowest-order quantum statistics beyond the mean value can be expressed via the second-order correlation function g ð2Þ ðτÞ ¼ hâ…”

Coherence time measurements using a single detector with variable time resolution

“…Analogous considerations are possible not only for g 2 0, but also for higher-order correlations, and measurements using detectors with variable time resolution should also be useful for determining these quantities [10][11][12][13][14]. Finally, we would also like to note that it is in principle also possible to determine g 2 t; τ for nonstationary light fields.…”

Quantum cascade driving: Dissipatively mediated coherences

“…The Schmidt decomposition allows to analyze the material response function to obtain information about otherwise inaccessible resonances of a complex system [32]. This connects to the context of quantum optical spectroscopy [11,33] and nonlinearity sensing via photon-statistics excitation spectroscopy [22,34].…”

“…Prototypical single photon emitters based on semiconductor nanostructures are produced [13][14][15] and used in quantum cryptography protocols [16][17][18] and quantum sensing [19]. Recently, practical realization of intense and tunable thermal sources have become accessible [20][21][22][23] and are applied experimentally for photon-statistics excitation spectroscopy [21,24] and to read-out quantum beating of hyperfine levels via a modulation with pulse separation [20]. Polarization-entangled photon sources, another class of quantum light sources, are electrically driven and triggered on demand [25].…”