Two-Photon Gateway in One-Atom Cavity Quantum Electrodynamics
- 13 November 2008
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Physical Society (APS) in Physical Review Letters
- Vol. 101 (20), 203602
- https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.101.203602
Abstract
Single atoms absorb and emit light from a resonant laser beam photon by photon. We show that a single atom strongly coupled to an optical cavity can absorb and emit resonant photons in pairs. The effect is observed in a photon correlation experiment on the light transmitted through the cavity. We find that the atom-cavity system transforms a random stream of input photons into a correlated stream of output photons, thereby acting as a two-photon gateway. The phenomenon has its origin in the quantum anharmonicity of the energy structure of the atom-cavity system. Future applications could include the controlled interaction of two photons by means of one atom.Keywords
This publication has 27 references indexed in Scilit:
- A Photon Turnstile Dynamically Regulated by One AtomScience, 2008
- A single-photon transistor using nanoscale surface plasmonsNature Physics, 2007
- A single-photon server with just one atomNature Physics, 2007
- Photon blockade in an optical cavity with one trapped atomNature, 2005
- Continuous generation of single photons with controlled waveform in an ion-trap cavity systemNature, 2004
- Deterministic Generation of Single Photons from One Atom Trapped in a CavityScience, 2004
- Deterministic Single-Photon Source for Distributed Quantum NetworkingPhysical Review Letters, 2002
- Quantum State Reduction and Conditional Time Evolution of Wave-Particle Correlations in Cavity QEDPhysical Review Letters, 2000
- Intensity correlations in cavity QEDPhysical Review A, 2000
- Optical bistability and photon statistics in cavity quantum electrodynamicsPhysical Review Letters, 1991