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ARC Centre for Engineered Quantum Systems, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Macquarie University, NSW 2109, Australia
2
State Key Laboratory for Mesoscopic Physics, Department of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
3
Department of Physics, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai 200237, China
(Received 27 May 2014; published 1 October 2014)
The nonreciprocal propagation of light at the single-photon level is essential for building a quantum network.
Bulk optical schemes are lossy and difficulty to integrate onto a chip. We propose a single-photon optical
diode and a three-port circulator without a magnetic field by coupling an unbalanced quantum impurity to
a passive, linear optical waveguide or a whispering-gallery-mode microresonator which supports a locally or
globally circularly polarized photon. Thanks to the unbalanced quantum Jaynes-Cummings coupling, the optical
nonreciprocal propagation of single photons can be achieved without an external magnetic field. In particular, the
three-port single-photon circulator can be accomplished using the existing experimental technology. The optical
isolation can be reversed by selectively populating the initial state of the quantum impurity. Moreover, by using
an ensemble of identical atoms filled in a hollow-core microbottle resonator, nonreciprocal propagation of weak
light pulses can be achieved.
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.90.043802
I. INTRODUCTION
keyu.xia@mq.edu.au
1050-2947/2014/90(4)/043802(7)
Here we first explain the basic idea for our optical isolation.
We dope a V-type quantum impurity with degenerate transition
frequencies q , but different dipole moments , and decay
rates at a certain place where a passive, linear waveguide
or WGM microresonator couples to it. Essentially different
from Shens work [16], the quantum impurity in our scheme
couples to the + and polarized light with different
rates, g+ + and g , respectively. The waveguide
[16] or WGM microresonator [18,19,21] supports a locally or
globally planar, circular polarization. In such optical setups
the polarization of the light is dependent on the propagation
direction of the light. For instance, one can arrange that
the polarization of light at the location of the impurity is
right-hand circular (+ ) when the input light propagates
forward (left-hand input), while it is polarized for the
backward-propagating photon (right-hand input). As a result,
time reversal symmetry breaks if |g+ | = |g |, leading to the
nonreciprocal propagation of a single-photon even without
an external magnetic field. We go further to study a WGM
microresonator mentioned above coupled to a bus(throughput)
waveguide and a drop waveguide simultaneously. Such a
configuration constitutes a three-port single-photon circulator.
Now we start by describing the configuration of our singlephoton diode and circulator. We propose two implementations
for the single-photon diode and one for the photon circulator.
043802-1
x
P4
ex2
d+
P1
in
ex1
x
out
62 P3/2
|F = 5, mF = 5
P
d (b)3
out
P2
in
|F = 5, mF = 3
(c)
+
g+
62 S1/2
|F = 4, mF = 4
q i( )
,
q + i( + )
(1)
043802-2
50
100
(b)
10
2iex1
c i
2i ex1 ex2
c i
|g |2
q i
|g |2
q i
(2a)
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
20
10
0
i
10
20
(2b)
where ex1 (ex2 ) = V12 /2vg (V22 /2vg ) is the decay rate of the
cavity due to the external coupling V1 (V2 ) to the bus (drop)
waveguide, and = i + ex1 + ex2 is the total decay rate of
the cavity where i is the intrinsic decay rate of the cavity.
We define the detuning = c and always assume that
c = q , the degenerate internal transition frequency of the
V-type atom. The transmissions are defined as T,B = |t,B |2
and T,D = |t,D |2 . We assume that the photons in both of the
bus and drop waveguides have the same group velocity vg .
A. Type-II single-photon diode
Tran sm ission
50
Tran sm ission
(a)
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
Tran sm ission
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
100
Con trast
Tran sm ission
043802-3
it ,D (x ,t) =
ivg x
,D (x
,t)
+ V2 (x )ec ,
(3a)
(3b)
it ec = ( ii )ec + V1 ,B (x,t)(x)
ea ,
+ V2 ,D (x
,t)(x
) + g
it ea = ( i )ea + g ec ,
(3c)
(3d)
(x) (arb.unit)
0
x (m)
FIG. 5. (Color online) Propagation of single-photon pulses with
4i in the circulator for = 0 and vg = 1 108 m/s, as in Fig. 4.
The cartoon circles indicate the cavity and the quantum impurity,
respectively. The arrows indicate the moving directions. Blue (red)
lines show the input and transmitted field for the left-hand (right-hand)
input.
043802-4
This work was funded by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Engineered Quantum Systems
(EQuS), CE110001013, and the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (Grants No. 11204080, No. 11274112,
and No. 61275215).
APPENDIX A: TYPE-I SINGLE-PHOTON DIODE
CR
dx C R in ivg
x
CL
+ CL in + ivg
x
+ V dx(x)[S+ C R + C R S + S+ C L + C L S ]
1 + t+
,
2
1 + t
L (0) =
,
2
R (x)
ivg
|x=0 = ( in )R (0) ivg (t+ 1) ,
x
L (x)
|x=0 = ( in )L (0) + ivg (1 t ) .
ivg
x
In the steady state, we have
R (0) =
+ (e i )a e a e + g a g a g ,
(A2)
H =
|F
= 5,m
F
= 3 for the driving. S+ = a e a g and S = S+ .
V is proportional to the dipole moments, is the coupling
strength between the field in the waveguide and the quantum
impurity, and vg is the group velocity of the photon in the
waveguide. The first (second) term describes the free evolution
of the right-going (left-going) mode. The second line shows
the interaction between the quantum impurity and the traveling
modes. The free Hamiltonian of the impurity is described by
the last line.
We assume that the eigenstate of the system given by | =
(A3b)
(A1)
(A4a)
(A4b)
043802-5
+ dx CD in ivg
C D
x
+ V2 (x
) a C D + C D a
q i( )
,
q + i( + )
(A5)
S+ a c )
+ (x)[g a c S + g
CB
dx C B in ivg
x
+ V1 (x)(a CB + CB a)
H =
+ (c ii )a c a c + (q i )a e a e ,
C B
(B1)
(C D )
where
is a bosonic operator creating the traveling
mode in the bus (drop) waveguide; x and x
indicate the
location in the bus waveguide and drop waveguide, respectively; V1 (V2 ) is the coupling strength between the bus (drop)
waveguide and the cavity; and i is the intrinsic decay rate
of the cavity. are the decay rates of the quantum impurity
corresponding to the degenerate transition
driven
by the
| = [ dx B C B + dx
D C D + ec a c + ea a e a g ]| asso
2iex1
c i
2i ex1 ex2
c i
|g |2
q i
|g |2
q i
(B2a)
(B2b)
where ex1 (ex2 ) = V12 /2vg (V22 /2vg ) is the decay rate of
the cavity due to the external coupling V1 (V2 ) to the bus
(drop) waveguide, and = i + ex1 + ex2 is the total decay
rate of the cavity. We define the detuning = c and
always assume that c = q , the degenerate internal transition
frequency of the V-type atom. The transmissions are defined
as T,B = |t,B |2 and T,D = |t,D |2 . Here we assume that the
photons in both of the bus and drop waveguides have the same
group velocity vg .
043802-6
043802-7