Observation of squeezed light from one atom excited with two photons

Single quantum emitters such as atoms are well known as non-classical light sources with reduced noise in the intensity, capable of producing photons one by one at given times. However, the light field emitted by a single atom can exhibit much richer dynamics. A prominent example is the predicted ability of a single atom to produce quadrature-squeezed light, which has fluctuations of amplitude or phase that are below the shot-noise level. However, such squeezing is much more difficult to observe than the emission of single photons. Squeezed beams have been generated using macroscopic and mesoscopic media down to a few tens of atoms, but despite experimental efforts, single-atom squeezing has so far escaped observation. Here we generate squeezed light with a single atom in a high-finesse optical resonator. The strong coupling of the atom to the cavity field induces a genuine quantum mechanical nonlinearity, which is several orders of magnitude larger than in typical macroscopic media. This produces observable quadrature squeezing, with an excitation beam containing on average only two photons per system lifetime. In sharp contrast to the emission of single photons, the squeezed light stems from the quantum coherence of photon pairs emitted from the system. The ability of a single atom to induce strong coherent interactions between propagating photons opens up new perspectives for photonic quantum logic with single emitters.     

Continuous generation of single photons with controlled waveform in an ion-trap cavity system

The controlled production of single photons is of fundamental and practical interest; they represent the lowest excited quantum states of the radiation field, and have applications in quantum cryptography and quantum information processing. Common approaches use the fluorescence of single ions, single molecules, colour centres and semiconductor quantum dots. However, the lack of control over such irreversible emission processes precludes the use of these sources in applications (such as quantum networks) that require coherent exchange of quantum states between atoms and photons. The necessary control may be achieved in principle in cavity quantum electrodynamics. Although this approach has been used for the production of single photons from atoms, such experiments are compromised by limited trapping times, fluctuating atom-field coupling and multi-atom effects. Here we demonstrate a single-photon source based on a strongly localized single ion in an optical cavity. The ion is optimally coupled to a well-defined field mode, resulting in the generation of single-photon pulses with precisely defined shape and timing. We have confirmed the suppression of two-photon events up to the limit imposed by fluctuations in the rate of detector dark counts. The stream of emitted photons is uninterrupted over the storage time of the ion, as demonstrated by a measurement of photon correlations over 90 min.     

Quantum jumps of light recording the birth and death of a photon in a cavity

A microscopic quantum system under continuous observation exhibits at random times sudden jumps between its states. The detection of this quantum feature requires a quantum non-demolition (QND) measurement repeated many times during the system's evolution. Whereas quantum jumps of trapped massive particles (electrons, ions or molecules) have been observed, this has proved more challenging for light quanta. Standard photodetectors absorb light and are thus unable to detect the same photon twice. It is therefore necessary to use a transparent counter that can 'see' photons without destroying them. Moreover, the light needs to be stored for durations much longer than the QND detection time. Here we report an experiment in which we fulfil these challenging conditions and observe quantum jumps in the photon number. Microwave photons are stored in a superconducting cavity for times up to half a second, and are repeatedly probed by a stream of non-absorbing atoms. An atom interferometer measures the atomic dipole phase shift induced by the non-resonant cavity field, so that the final atom state reveals directly the presence of a single photon in the cavity. Sequences of hundreds of atoms, highly correlated in the same state, are interrupted by sudden state switchings. These telegraphic signals record the birth, life and death of individual photons. Applying a similar QND procedure to mesoscopic fields with tens of photons should open new perspectives for the exploration of the quantum-to-classical boundary.     

Quantum interference between two single photons emitted by independently trapped atoms

When two indistinguishable single photons are fed into the two input ports of a beam splitter, the photons will coalesce and leave together from the same output port. This is a quantum interference effect, which occurs because two possible paths-in which the photons leave by different output ports-interfere destructively. This effect was first observed in parametric downconversion (in which a nonlinear crystal splits a single photon into two photons of lower energy), then from two separate downconversion crystals, as well as with single photons produced one after the other by the same quantum emitter. With the recent developments in quantum information research, much attention has been devoted to this interference effect as a resource for quantum data processing using linear optics techniques. To ensure the scalability of schemes based on these ideas, it is crucial that indistinguishable photons are emitted by a collection of synchronized, but otherwise independent sources. Here we demonstrate the quantum interference of two single photons emitted by two independently trapped single atoms, bridging the gap towards the simultaneous emission of many indistinguishable single photons by different emitters. Our data analysis shows that the observed coalescence is mainly limited by wavefront matching of the light emitted by the two atoms, and to a lesser extent by the motion of each atom in its own trap.     

Trapping an atom with single photons

The creation of a photon-atom bound state was first envisaged for the case of an atom in a long-lived excited state inside a high-quality microwave cavity. In practice, however, light forces in the microwave domain are insufficient to support an atom against gravity. Although optical photons can provide forces of the required magnitude, atomic decay rates and cavity losses are larger too, and so the atom-cavity system must be continually excited by an external laser. Such an approach also permits continuous observation of the atom's position, by monitoring the light transmitted through the cavity. The dual role of photons in this system distinguishes it from other single-atom experiments such as those using magneto-optical traps, ion traps or a far-off-resonance optical trap. Here we report high-finesse optical cavity experiments in which the change in transmission induced by a single slow atom approaching the cavity triggers an external feedback switch which traps the atom in a light field containing about one photon on average. The oscillatory motion of the trapped atom induces oscillations in the transmitted light intensity; we attribute periodic structure in intensity-correlation-function data to 'long-distance' flights of the atom between different anti-nodes of the standing-wave in the cavity. The system should facilitate investigations of the dynamics of single quantum objects and may find future applications in quantum information processing.     

Cavity cooling of a single atom

All conventional methods to laser-cool atoms rely on repeated cycles of optical pumping and spontaneous emission of a photon by the atom. Spontaneous emission in a random direction provides the dissipative mechanism required to remove entropy from the atom. However, alternative cooling methods have been proposed for a single atom strongly coupled to a high-finesse cavity; the role of spontaneous emission is replaced by the escape of a photon from the cavity. Application of such cooling schemes would improve the performance of atom-cavity systems for quantum information processing. Furthermore, as cavity cooling does not rely on spontaneous emission, it can be applied to systems that cannot be laser-cooled by conventional methods; these include molecules (which do not have a closed transition) and collective excitations of Bose condensates, which are destroyed by randomly directed recoil kicks. Here we demonstrate cavity cooling of single rubidium atoms stored in an intracavity dipole trap. The cooling mechanism results in extended storage times and improved localization of atoms. We estimate that the observed cooling rate is at least five times larger than that produced by free-space cooling methods, for comparable excitation of the atom.     

一个基于腔衰减的四原子纠缠态制备方案

基于A型三能级原子与腔场及经典场的相互作用理论,利用单光子探测器对从光腔中泄漏出来的光子进行符合测量,提出了一个四原子纠缠态的制备方案,四个分别处于不同光腔中的原子将以一定的概率处于GHZ态。     

Photon blockade in an optical cavity with one trapped atom

At low temperatures, sufficiently small metallic and semiconductor devices exhibit the 'Coulomb blockade' effect, in which charge transport through the device occurs on an electron-by-electron basis. For example, a single electron on a metallic island can block the flow of another electron if the charging energy of the island greatly exceeds the thermal energy. The analogous effect of 'photon blockade' has been proposed for the transport of light through an optical system; this involves photon-photon interactions in a nonlinear optical cavity. Here we report observations of photon blockade for the light transmitted by an optical cavity containing one trapped atom, in the regime of strong atom-cavity coupling. Excitation of the atom-cavity system by a first photon blocks the transmission of a second photon, thereby converting an incident poissonian stream of photons into a sub-poissonian, anti-bunched stream. This is confirmed by measurements of the photon statistics of the transmitted field. Our observations of photon blockade represent an advance over traditional nonlinear optics and laser physics, into a regime with dynamical processes involving atoms and photons taken one-by-one.     

Experimental realization of a one-atom laser in the regime of strong coupling

Conventional lasers (from table-top systems to microscopic devices) typically operate in the so-called weak-coupling regime, involving large numbers of atoms and photons; individual quanta have a negligible impact on the system dynamics. However, this is no longer the case when the system approaches the regime of strong coupling for which the number of atoms and photons can become quite small. Indeed, the lasing properties of a single atom in a resonant cavity have been extensively investigated theoretically. Here we report the experimental realization of a one-atom laser operated in the regime of strong coupling. We exploit recent advances in cavity quantum electrodynamics that allow one atom to be isolated in an optical cavity in a regime for which one photon is sufficient to saturate the atomic transition. The observed characteristics of the atom-cavity system are qualitatively different from those of the familiar many-atom case. Specifically, our measurements of the intracavity photon number versus pump intensity indicate that there is no threshold for lasing, and we infer that the output flux from the cavity mode exceeds that from atomic fluorescence by more than tenfold. Observations of the second-order intensity correlation function demonstrate that our one-atom laser generates manifestly quantum (nonclassical) light, typified by photon anti-bunching and sub-poissonian photon statistics.     

Single photons on demand from a single molecule at room temperature

The generation of non-classical states of light is of fundamental scientific and technological interest. For example, 'squeezed' states enable measurements to be performed at lower noise levels than possible using classical light. Deterministic (or triggered) single-photon sources exhibit non-classical behaviour in that they emit, with a high degree of certainty, just one photon at a user-specified time. (In contrast, a classical source such as an attenuated pulsed laser emits photons according to Poisson statistics.) A deterministic source of single photons could find applications in quantum information processing, quantum cryptography and certain quantum computation problems. Here we realize a controllable source of single photons using optical pumping of a single molecule in a solid. Triggered single photons are produced at a high rate, whereas the probability of simultaneous emission of two photons is nearly zero--a useful property for secure quantum cryptography. Our approach is characterized by simplicity, room temperature operation and improved performance compared to other triggered sources of single photons.     

Measurement of the internal state of a single atom without energy exchange

A measurement necessarily changes the quantum state being measured, a phenomenon known as back-action. Real measurements, however, almost always cause a much stronger back-action than is required by the laws of quantum mechanics. Quantum non-demolition measurements have been devised that keep the additional back-action entirely within observables other than the one being measured. However, this back-action on other observables often imposes its own constraints. In particular, free-space optical detection methods for single atoms and ions (such as the shelving technique, a sensitive and well-developed method) inevitably require spontaneous scattering, even in the dispersive regime. This causes irreversible energy exchange (heating), which is a limitation in atom-based quantum information processing, where it obviates straightforward reuse of the qubit. No such energy exchange is required by quantum mechanics. Here we experimentally demonstrate optical detection of an atomic qubit with significantly less than one spontaneous scattering event. We measure the transmission and reflection of an optical cavity containing the atom. In addition to the qubit detection itself, we quantitatively measure how much spontaneous scattering has occurred. This allows us to relate the information gained to the amount of spontaneous emission, and we obtain a detection error below 10 per cent while scattering less than 0.2 photons on average. Furthermore, we perform a quantum Zeno-type experiment to quantify the measurement back-action, and find that every incident photon leads to an almost complete state collapse. Together, these results constitute a full experimental characterization of a quantum measurement in the 'energy exchange-free' regime below a single spontaneous emission event. Besides its fundamental interest, this approach could significantly simplify proposed neutral-atom quantum computation schemes, and may enable sensitive detection of molecules and atoms lacking closed transitions.     

Observation of strong coupling between one atom and a monolithic microresonator

Over the past decade, strong interactions of light and matter at the single-photon level have enabled a wide set of scientific advances in quantum optics and quantum information science. This work has been performed principally within the setting of cavity quantum electrodynamics with diverse physical systems, including single atoms in Fabry-Perot resonators, quantum dots coupled to micropillars and photonic bandgap cavities and Cooper pairs interacting with superconducting resonators. Experiments with single, localized atoms have been at the forefront of these advances with the use of optical resonators in high-finesse Fabry-Perot configurations. As a result of the extreme technical challenges involved in further improving the multilayer dielectric mirror coatings of these resonators and in scaling to large numbers of devices, there has been increased interest in the development of alternative microcavity systems. Here we show strong coupling between individual caesium atoms and the fields of a high-quality toroidal microresonator. From observations of transit events for single atoms falling through the resonator's evanescent field, we determine the coherent coupling rate for interactions near the surface of the resonator. We develop a theoretical model to quantify our observations, demonstrating that strong coupling is achieved, with the rate of coherent coupling exceeding the dissipative rates of the atom and the cavity. Our work opens the way for investigations of optical processes with single atoms and photons in lithographically fabricated microresonators. Applications include the implementation of quantum networks, scalable quantum logic with photons, and quantum information processing on atom chips.     

Generating single microwave photons in a circuit

Microwaves have widespread use in classical communication technologies, from long-distance broadcasts to short-distance signals within a computer chip. Like all forms of light, microwaves, even those guided by the wires of an integrated circuit, consist of discrete photons. To enable quantum communication between distant parts of a quantum computer, the signals must also be quantum, consisting of single photons, for example. However, conventional sources can generate only classical light, not single photons. One way to realize a single-photon source is to collect the fluorescence of a single atom. Early experiments measured the quantum nature of continuous radiation, and further advances allowed triggered sources of photons on demand. To allow efficient photon collection, emitters are typically placed inside optical or microwave cavities, but these sources are difficult to employ for quantum communication on wires within an integrated circuit. Here we demonstrate an on-chip, on-demand single-photon source, where the microwave photons are injected into a wire with high efficiency and spectral purity. This is accomplished in a circuit quantum electrodynamics architecture, with a microwave transmission line cavity that enhances the spontaneous emission of a single superconducting qubit. When the qubit spontaneously emits, the generated photon acts as a flying qubit, transmitting the quantum information across a chip. We perform tomography of both the qubit and the emitted photons, clearly showing that both the quantum phase and amplitude are transferred during the emission. Both the average power and voltage of the photon source are characterized to verify performance of the system. This single-photon source is an important addition to a rapidly growing toolbox for quantum optics on a chip.     

Cavity QED with a Bose-Einstein condensate

Cavity quantum electrodynamics (cavity QED) describes the coherent interaction between matter and an electromagnetic field confined within a resonator structure, and is providing a useful platform for developing concepts in quantum information processing. By using high-quality resonators, a strong coupling regime can be reached experimentally in which atoms coherently exchange a photon with a single light-field mode many times before dissipation sets in. This has led to fundamental studies with both microwave and optical resonators. To meet the challenges posed by quantum state engineering and quantum information processing, recent experiments have focused on laser cooling and trapping of atoms inside an optical cavity. However, the tremendous degree of control over atomic gases achieved with Bose-Einstein condensation has so far not been used for cavity QED. Here we achieve the strong coupling of a Bose-Einstein condensate to the quantized field of an ultrahigh-finesse optical cavity and present a measurement of its eigenenergy spectrum. This is a conceptually new regime of cavity QED, in which all atoms occupy a single mode of a matter-wave field and couple identically to the light field, sharing a single excitation. This opens possibilities ranging from quantum communication to a wealth of new phenomena that can be expected in the many-body physics of quantum gases with cavity-mediated interactions.     

Single artificial-atom lasing

Solid-state superconducting circuits are versatile systems in which quantum states can be engineered and controlled. Recent progress in this area has opened up exciting possibilities for exploring fundamental physics as well as applications in quantum information technology; in a series of experiments it was shown that such circuits can be exploited to generate quantum optical phenomena, by designing superconducting elements as artificial atoms that are coupled coherently to the photon field of a resonator. Here we demonstrate a lasing effect with a single artificial atom--a Josephson-junction charge qubit--embedded in a superconducting resonator. We make use of one of the properties of solid-state artificial atoms, namely that they are strongly and controllably coupled to the resonator modes. The device is essentially different from existing lasers and masers; one and the same artificial atom excited by current injection produces many photons.     

Electromagnetically induced transparency with tunable single-photon pulses

Techniques to facilitate controlled interactions between single photons and atoms are now being actively explored. These techniques are important for the practical realization of quantum networks, in which multiple memory nodes that utilize atoms for generation, storage and processing of quantum states are connected by single-photon transmission in optical fibres. One promising avenue for the realization of quantum networks involves the manipulation of quantum pulses of light in optically dense atomic ensembles using electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT, refs 8, 9). EIT is a coherent control technique that is widely used for controlling the propagation of classical, multi-photon light pulses in applications such as efficient nonlinear optics. Here we demonstrate the use of EIT for the controllable generation, transmission and storage of single photons with tunable frequency, timing and bandwidth. We study the interaction of single photons produced in a 'source' ensemble of 87Rb atoms at room temperature with another 'target' ensemble. This allows us to simultaneously probe the spectral and quantum statistical properties of narrow-bandwidth single-photon pulses, revealing that their quantum nature is preserved under EIT propagation and storage. We measure the time delay associated with the reduced group velocity of the single-photon pulses and report observations of their storage and retrieval.     

Quantum nonlinear optics with single photons enabled by strongly interacting atoms

The realization of strong nonlinear interactions between individual light quanta (photons) is a long-standing goal in optical science and engineering, being of both fundamental and technological significance. In conventional optical materials, the nonlinearity at light powers corresponding to single photons is negligibly weak. Here we demonstrate a medium that is nonlinear at the level of individual quanta, exhibiting strong absorption of photon pairs while remaining transparent to single photons. The quantum nonlinearity is obtained by coherently coupling slowly propagating photons to strongly interacting atomic Rydberg states in a cold, dense atomic gas. Our approach paves the way for quantum-by-quantum control of light fields, including single-photon switching, all-optical deterministic quantum logic and the realization of strongly correlated many-body states of light.     

Strong atom-field coupling for Bose-Einstein condensates in an optical cavity on a chip

An optical cavity enhances the interaction between atoms and light, and the rate of coherent atom-photon coupling can be made larger than all decoherence rates of the system. For single atoms, this 'strong coupling regime' of cavity quantum electrodynamics has been the subject of many experimental advances. Efforts have been made to control the coupling rate by trapping the atom and cooling it towards the motional ground state; the latter has been achieved in one dimension so far. For systems of many atoms, the three-dimensional ground state of motion is routinely achieved in atomic Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs). Although experiments combining BECs and optical cavities have been reported recently, coupling BECs to cavities that are in the strong-coupling regime for single atoms has remained an elusive goal. Here we report such an experiment, made possible by combining a fibre-based cavity with atom-chip technology. This enables single-atom cavity quantum electrodynamics experiments with a simplified set-up and realizes the situation of many atoms in a cavity, each of which is identically and strongly coupled to the cavity mode. Moreover, the BEC can be positioned deterministically anywhere within the cavity and localized entirely within a single antinode of the standing-wave cavity field; we demonstrate that this gives rise to a controlled, tunable coupling rate. We study the heating rate caused by a cavity transmission measurement as a function of the coupling rate and find no measurable heating for strongly coupled BECs. The spectrum of the coupled atoms-cavity system, which we map out over a wide range of atom numbers and cavity-atom detunings, shows vacuum Rabi splittings exceeding 20 gigahertz, as well as an unpredicted additional splitting, which we attribute to the atomic hyperfine structure. We anticipate that the system will be suitable as a light-matter quantum interface for quantum information.     

基于原子与光场共振相互作用的W态融合

基于腔量子动力学(QED)系统,从N个原子和M个原子的W态中各取1个原子同时送入真空腔场,利用原子与腔场相互作用实现2个W态融合.当原子与腔场发生共振作用后,探测腔场.结果表明:若有1个光子,则初始的2个W态以一定概率融合为(N+M)个原子W态;若腔场中没有光子,则探测飞出2个原子,若2个原子中有1个原子处于激发态,则初始的2个W态以一定概率融合为(N+M-2)个原子W态;若2个原子均处于基态,则余下的(N-1)个原子W态和(M-1)个原子W态仍可按此方案循环融合.     

Optical nano-imaging of gate-tunable graphene plasmons

The ability to manipulate optical fields and the energy flow of light is central to modern information and communication technologies, as well as quantum information processing schemes. However, because photons do not possess charge, a way of controlling them efficiently by electrical means has so far proved elusive. A promising way to achieve electric control of light could be through plasmon polaritons—coupled excitations of photons and charge carriers—in graphene. In this two-dimensional sheet of carbon atoms, it is expected that plasmon polaritons and their associated optical fields can readily be tuned electrically by varying the graphene carrier density. Although evidence of optical graphene plasmon resonances has recently been obtained spectroscopically, no experiments so far have directly resolved propagating plasmons in real space. Here we launch and detect propagating optical plasmons in tapered graphene nanostructures using near-field scattering microscopy with infrared excitation light. We provide real-space images of plasmon fields, and find that the extracted plasmon wavelength is very short—more than 40 times smaller than the wavelength of illumination. We exploit this strong optical field confinement to turn a graphene nanostructure into a tunable resonant plasmonic cavity with extremely small mode volume. The cavity resonance is controlled in situ by gating the graphene, and in particular, complete switching on and off of the plasmon modes is demonstrated, thus paving the way towards graphene-based optical transistors. This successful alliance between nanoelectronics and nano-optics enables the development of active subwavelength-scale optics and a plethora of nano-optoelectronic devices and functionalities, such as tunable metamaterials, nanoscale optical processing, and strongly enhanced light–matter interactions for quantum devices and biosensing applications.