Nonreciprocal Photon Blockade

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 wellcontrolled 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.

Two-photon blockade and photon-induced tunneling generated by squeezing

“…Analogously, standard three-photon tunneling (three-PT) is a photon-number correlation effect, in which the simultaneous arrival of three photons is enhanced compared to the two-photon and single-photon arrivals. Thus, three-PT can be characterized by the conditions [58,69]:…”

“…Note that other definitions of PIT are used in the literature (see Ref. [58] for a comparison), e.g., those based on a local maximum of g (2) (τ ) at τ = 0 (i.e., corresponding to two-time photon bunching) [38] or the requirement that g (3) (0) > g (2) (0), i.e., the simultaneous arrival of three photons is enhanced compared to the simultaneous two-photon arrivals [70] without specifying whether g (2) (0) exhibits the super-or sub-Poissonian statistics. Various types of PIT in comparison to PB are listed in Table II.…”

Nonreciprocity via Nonlinearity and Synthetic Magnetism

“…Here, we will show that the transport photons exhibit strong photon antibunching in one direction but weak photon antibunching in the reverse direction, when a weak coherent field is injected into an asymmetric nonlinear optical molecule. Such quantum nonreciprocal effect for transport photons with asymmetric statistical properties under exchange of source and detector is called nonreciprocal photon blockade, which is predicted firstly in a spinning Kerr resonator [21] based on the Fizeau light-dragging effect [22][23][24][25]. Nonreciprocal photon blockades were also predicted in multi-mode optomechanical systems based on directional nonlinear interaction [26] or quantum interference [27].…”

Nonreciprocal interference and coherent photon routing in a three-port optomechanical system

“…Inspired by the Sagnac effect, however, nonreciprocal optical transmissions can also be realized by spinning a whispering-gallery-mode (WGM) resonator [40,41]. With this technology, nonreciprocal photon blockade [42] and phonon lasing [43] have been achieved in succession. Most recently, Xu et al proposed a nonreciprocal transition scheme of nondegenerate energy levels based on reservoir engineering, which may serve as the kernel of a nonreciprocal singlephoton transporter [44].…”